Bad Moon Rising
by Elizabeth Hughes
Summary: The paranormal stole her family from her as a child and Ali has been on the road to vengeance ever since. There have been no distractions because there cannot be. She must avenge her family. No questions asked. But when Ali runs into two figures of her past during a job, the Winchesters prove to turn her life upside down in more than one way, becoming the ve
1. 40,000 Miles

The night was dark, the shadows long, and the coppery taste of her own trepidation filled her mouth, dark and rich as blood. She could feel her heartbeat, fluttering beneath her chest, increased because of stress. A giveaway but her lifeline. A bullseye for what she was hunting but something that could not be helped, the same as the breath that wafted from her mouth in cold clouds. She padded as quietly as she could through the building, her every sense on alert, her eyes as wide as they could be in an effort to try and see as much as they could.

It didn't help, it being so dark when her prey could see better than a cat.

She gripped her machete more tightly in hand, every footstep as quiet as possible. The shapes of the office furniture rose in her sight, potential hazards as well as potential hideaways. Eyes raked over them, trying to find her quarry while trying to make sure her own ass was safe. It was times like these when she understood why other hunters worked with partners because, god, but it was scary going after a vamp all by your lonesome with no one there to watch out for your hide.

She came to a corner and paused, trying to peer around it before she went barreling in and was potentially killed for it. The bastards were fast and deadly and scary strong—she only had her wits and her own abilities and the giant machete in hand to keep her on this side of alive. Sometimes, it wasn't enough.

A cold wind blew through the gutted office building, abandoned years ago and left to its own devices. The furniture was piled haphazardly together, cobwebbed and broken. The windows were all broken, busted out during the long years the building had been left unused. Ali shivered, huddling back into her jacket, peeking around the corner again—nothing.

She slipped around it, pressed tight against the wall, glancing over her shoulder to make sure there was nothing behind her. She paced forward, trying to be as silent as possible, trying not to give the vampire she hunted any forewarning that she was here.

A body came leaping at her out of the dark, hitting her square in the middle. She went down instantly and rolled, but strong arms pinned her down solidly. She hacked with her knife, intent on taking the bastard down with her if it was the last thing she did, but fingers gripped her wrist hard enough that she dropped the machete with a cry of pain. She kneed up into the body above her and winded her opponent enough to roll to the side and gain her feet. A fist came flashing toward her face and she ducked, swinging her own. There were punches, jabs, and kicks, some that landed and some that didn't. She took a particularly vicious hit to the face and the ribs but landed a kick of her own in a leg and a jab in a shoulder.

They circled, fighting for an opening, for anything. She wanted her knife, laying ready for use several feet away, but that required getting a moment's reprieve and none was coming. She wondered why she hadn't been wasted already—a vampire certainly had the capability—when he finally spoke, voice harsh and deep.

"You better give it up, you leech. You're not getting out of here alive!"

Ali actually laughed at that, blocking a particularly vicious swing that made her forearm burn. God, whoever this was, he was [i]strong.[/i] And good, very good. But where was the speed? Where was the inhuman strength? It was starting to bother her even as they continued fighting, breath coming faster and harder from the effort.

"Me? A leech? Oh, you have—got to be kidding me. You're the—bloodsucker."

He stopped and she was able to hit him, hard, in the chest, forcing him back a step. Ali immediately fell to the floor and rolled, grabbing her knife as she sprang to her feet, ready for whatever else was headed her way.

But he was standing where he had stopped, the darkness complete around him, making him just another shadow. She could tell he was tall, and built—his fighting had definitely been an indicator of that—but that was all. She sidled closer, machete gripped tightly. She was going to annihilate this bloodsucker and go back and take a long, hot shower as celebration for a job well done. She raised her knife higher, expecting more of a fight than this, but his voice came quick and urgent.

"Wait, wait. I think there's some confusion. You're not a vampire…and neither am I. I'm not what you're hunting."

Ali laughed. "Yeah, I'm sure. That's what you all say."

"I'm completely serious. My name is Dean Winchester and I'm a hunter like you."

That certainly stopped her.

Ali froze and straightened up, letting her knife fall. She knew the name and she knew who was standing in front of her now. Her heart thudded, hard, harder than it had when she'd been stalking the vampire bitch she was looking for. She peered at the man in front of her, trying to determine if he was who he really said he was, though she wasn't sure she'd even recognize him after ten years.

"Prove it," she finally said.

"And my fighting didn't? You know, there's not exactly a membership card here, sweetheart."

She stayed stubbornly silent and he seemed to realize he was going to be getting nowhere without indulging her. She heard his aggravated sigh before his hand clamped over her arm and he started dragging her toward a shaft of moonlight.

"Hey, hands off the merchandise, ace!"

"Oh, please, if I wanted you dead, you would be."

He released her to stand in the moonlight, arms spread and unamused expression on his face. He turned around and then his arms dropped. The light was silver on his hair, making his high cheekbones all the more defined. His jeans and jacket fit him well and Ali had to smile, even if her heart was thrumming fast, because the leather jacket fit him much better now than it had the last time she'd seen him. And if Dean was here, that meant—

"Dean?" a male voice came calling, confirming everything that Ali had been thinking.

She turned but Dean stepped forward, unamused expression on his handsome face. "Ah ah ah, sweetheart, you're not going anywhere. I don't trust you any more than you trust me." His voice rose higher, louder. "Sam! I'm over here."

They waited, he standing in the light, she in shadow, until a massive man rounded the corner, the knife in his hand glinting bright and sharp. Ali moved instinctively, but Dean grabbed her arm, pulling her back next to him so moonlight drenched her like a spotlight.

"It's just my brother. No need to worry."

"That's your brother?"

The Sam she remembered was small, all arms and legs, with an almost underfed, scrawny look and floppy hair. That was over ten years ago, and he'd be over twenty now. It stood to reason that he'd be different but…the last time she had seen the Winchester brothers, Dean had seemed so much larger and scarier. Perspective.

"Yup." He addressed Sam again. "Hey, it's all good. No vamp here. Just another hunter."

"Another hunter?"

"Yeah, some girl." Dean frowned, turning, releasing her speculatively. "What is your name anyway?"

Ali brushed her arm off, earning a reproving look from Dean, not that she cared. She was just spooked that of all the hunters she could have run into in the entirety of North America, she had tripped her way into Dean and Sam Winchester, men she had known briefly as boys long, long ago. And she ran into them on a job in Michigan? It was seriously just starting to get a little creepy.

She glanced at the both of them, hazel eyes somewhat wary. She had no idea how they were going to react to any of this. Or if they'd even remember.

"I'm Ali, Ali Russell." Eyes slanted back their way and she saw it in Sam's face first, in the dark eyes so high above her, in the way his brows wrinkled and smoothed back. He looked at Dean, who had merely accepted it, no questions asked, and then turned to her.

"Have we met before?"

This is the moment of truth, the moment where she can spill all or withhold. It was a decade ago—what would they remember? They were kids, all of them, dragged along by the fickle bitch of life. Ali pushed her long hair back from her face, biting at her lower lip before nodding.

"Yeah, yeah we have. Ten years ago, you and your dad came after the thing that killed my parents."


	2. One More Once

Silence hung, cold and icily fragile. So many possibilities and consequences spun out from the words she had just said, infinite results available. Ali shivered in the draft of frigid air that blew through gutted windows from the Minnesota night beyond, her mind working a mile a minute. She realized it had only been a few seconds since she had last spoken, though it felt like absolute eons.

She watched Sam and Dean exchange looks again and waited to hear their verdict. It wasn't every day you ran into a girl you knew a decade previously after her entire family had been slaughtered by some supernatural creature.

Dean coughed. "Listen, lady—"

Sam cut him off by stepping in front of him, looking around them cautiously. "We need to take this conversation somewhere else. You never know who's watching."

Eyes slid left and right as Ali agreed. There could be a million things hiding in the darkness for all they knew—including the vamp they had apparently lost or run off.

"There's a nice enough bar not too far from here." It was also conveniently located by her motel, not that she'd tell them that. You never trusted another unknown hunter, let alone more than one, if you liked your head where it was at. It didn't matter that it was Sam and Dean and she had met them, briefly, during her childhood. It didn't matter that all of the Winchesters had a reputation in the business. You didn't trust anyone, anyone, until they gave you a solid reason to do so.

Dean nodded, mouth pulled down in a way that Ali could just tell meant he was thinking what the hell, they may as well take the chance. "I'm in."

He apparently spoke for both himself and his brother because Sam merely nodded as well. Ali vaguely remembered that, remembered Dean being the leader of the two of them, even quietly. Sam had followed him just as they both had their dad, no questions asked. Apparently, that hadn't changed. She wondered briefly at that—Sam had to be over legal drinking age now—but she shook it off as they made their descent to the street, just as wary of every shadow and sound as ever. She felt better once they were in the open, where a vampire or some other monster couldn't come leaping up at her from behind some broken furniture or something like that. There was safety under the open sky, cluttered with its buildings and masses of people.

Directly across the lot was a low, black, masculine looking car, obviously an older model but also taken care of quite well. The rest of the block was empty, all of the people gone home, away from this run-down manufacturing area of town. Ali glanced at it and then at the two men at her side.

"Yours?"

She kind of remembered that as well, though time had blurred her memory. But she remembered the boys—or the boys they had been—and their father having a black car those long years ago. She wondered if it was the same.

Dean nodded, lips pursed in the streetlight, obviously proud. "Yeah, yeah. It's an Impala."

Ali frowned, somewhat impressed. It looked like quite the nice car, not that she really knew anything about cars. But it was shiny and beautiful and looked like the perfect vehicle for two hunters like the Winchesters. She liked it. It seemed to suite.

Half a block down from their car was her own, a small and sedate silver sedan. She had gone for blending in when she had stolen it a few years back; she didn't like calling attention to herself unless she had to, especially when it came to normal people. It was just better that way. She saw Sam nod in the direction of her vehicle.

"That you?"

"Yeah. Follow me there?"

"Yeah, yeah. That sounds good."

Ali made her way to her car, digging into her pocket for the simple keyring she kept. No sentiment, no attachments. You couldn't afford to. She unlocked her car and slid inside, turning the dial on the radio down so Foo Fighters wasn't blasting anymore. It had been her pump up music and she obviously didn't need it anymore. She turned her car on, flashing her lights at Sam and Dean, before she pulled around and waited for them to reach her.

She led them to the bar, thoughts racing ahead of her, leaping around the car in dizzy circles. She pressed tense fingertips to her forehead in an effort to concentrate. Just…what the hell. What the hell. How had she run into Sam and Dean, of all people? And in freaking Minnesota of all places? It just seemed so odd. She had run into other hunters before, and heard of Sam and Dean, as well as their dad, but she hadn't seen any of them for over a decade. And now here they were? It was just weird.

She slid her ponytail from her hair and shook out the long, blonde masses of it, massaging the back of her head with one hand as she stopped at a light, hoping letting her hair down would release some of the tension at the back of her head. It seemed to help a little, at least.

They reached the bar a few minutes later, pulling into spaces right next to each other. Doors opened and slammed. Ali didn't wait for them but just strode inside, needing a drink more than ever. She had lost her target and she had run into ghosts from her past. Tonight had not been very good at all.

The bar was typical, crowded with people looking to get away for one reason or another with scarred wooden floors installed for easy clean up. She went and sat at one of the high-top tables, feet propped up on the rungs of her stool. Sam and Dean followed her, though it wasn't without wary looks. Yeah. Because she was going to jump two men several inches taller than her by herself in the middle of a bar. Because that sounded smart.

They sat at the table with her, staying close by each other's sides. She noticed it with a glance and filed it away to peruse over later. Right now, she wanted to get a look at the two of them in better lighting.

They had grown up hot, that was for sure. Dean was muscular beneath his leather jacket, with dark blonde hair and green eyes and stubble. Sam was even taller. He had retained some of his sweet look and his hair was just as long and shaggy as before. It made her smile slightly before a perky woman who seemed to be half boobs came over, smiling brightly.

"What can I do ya for?" She snapped her gum, making Ali's teeth clench in irritation, but Dean was smiling, leaning closer, oozing charm. Of course. He would go for the floozy.

"Well, Mel," he said with a peek at her name tag, "my brother and I would love a beer, if you don't mind, and our friend would like—"

"A beer too, please," Ali interrupted, glaring at Dean unappreciatively. She hated being spoken for, especially by someone she had technically just met.

"Sure thing. Those will be right out." She smiled widely at Dean before she turned and sauntered away, ass switching back and forth in her too-tight jeans. Ali scoffed, unable to help herself, and Dean turned to her.

"What?"

"What do you mean what?"

"I mean do you have a problem?"

"Yeah, a little bit. Do you have to go for someone so easy?"

Dean spluttered and Sam laughed, large hand covering his mouth as he eyed the two combatants, obviously excited for what was to come. His brother leaned forward, hand cupping his mouth as well, scrubbing away at it as if he were wiping away the words he wanted to say.

"What do you mean, easy?"

"Well, she's working at a bar, isn't she?" Ali explained, smiling sweetly. "Out here in this type of area? It's mostly middle-class, blue collar workers. Factory workers, mostly. And who mostly works at factories? Men. Why do you think her tits are hanging out and her jeans look like they've been painted on? The girl's obviously cruising for hookups and better tips and she's not too picky about either."

Dean sat and huffed out a breath, obviously at a loss for what to say. He looked at his brother but Sam laughed again, holding his hands up in surrender.

"Dude, I am so not helping you with this. You know I don't really like what a horn dog you are either."

"Oh, so, what? Now I'm a horn dog?" Dean shot back, rounding on his brother now. It made Ali smile because, God, but it was easy jabbing at him and getting under his skin.

"Pretty much," Ali and Sam said in unison. It made her smile turn toward him now. He returned it and she remembered him at twelve or thirteen, the last time she'd seen him—scrawny, all arms and legs, unsure of himself as all pre-teens were. But she also remembered that smile, the one that pulled tight at his face, and was so happy it just blew straight through you like sunshine.

Desperate Mel was back then with their drinks, flirting outrageously with Dean, who seemed put off since Ali and Sam had spoken. Mel left, somewhat huffy, upset because of her new reception, after only a few brief moments. Sam and Ali just snickered, drinking their beers as Dean chugged slightly at his own, pissed and cranky for it.

"So, we were on the job ten years ago? And it involved you?"

Well, that had been quick. Ali choked lightly on her beer before she swallowed and nodded, joy suddenly sucked away in lieu of serious conversation.

"Yeah, yeah. My family was killed."

"Where? When?"

Sam threw his brother an exasperated look. Dean shrugged, frowning in confusion, and Sam turned to her now, all charm and warm concern. She liked it better than Dean being so unsympathetic but it also made her feel like a child and that she didn't exactly appreciate either.

"What we meant to ask was, when did this happen? And where were you living? You know how it is moving around so much."

"Yeah, sure." Ali sighed, cupping her long-necked beer bottle, staring at the dark brown glass. Telling them wasn't optional, no matter how much she wished it was. She had brought it up and it would be rude to leave them hanging. She may have been a bit brash, but she did her best to not be intentionally rude for no reason—unlike another person sitting at their table.

"We lived in Columbus, Georgia. My dad was an Army man so we moved around a lot. He was stationed at Fort Benning but we lived off base because it was all really close to each other." Ali inhaled deeply, calming the nerves and anxiety that rose as a result of the retelling. It always happened like this. Thinking about it took her back to it—the fear, the terror, the uncertainty. Blurry and jagged all at once. She was sucked down into it, even if she fought it, and saw it living behind her eyes as she spoke to the Winchesters, who had been involved in it, those long years ago.

"It was July and it was grossly hot. Sticky. There were only three weeks until school started…"

"Wasn't this—" Dean began but Sam cut him off with a hand on his arm and a shake of his head. He was watching Ali and noticed that her eyes were far, far away. He remembered now. He remembered the skinny girl with the huge, scared hazel eyes swallowed up by a face white with fear. He remembered the massacre they had found. He had remembered his own terror, bright, clogging his throat.

He knew Ali was lost in it now, lost in those memories.

"I spent the night at a friend's. She lived only a few blocks away. We were woken at five in the morning by a call from the police. Her parents took me home—they said there had been an accident. When we got there, there were wheeling out black body bags…" She saw it all. The black bags on the gurneys. The red and blue lights flashing on her lawn and house. The cops scurrying to and fro like ants. She hadn't understood, she hadn't gotten it, before memory kicked in and she remembered all the movies and TV shows she had seen and what black body bags meant. There had been screaming, so much of it, before she realized it was her own.

She coughed, rubbing her hands on denim-clad thighs, coming back to herself. She flashed a look at the two brothers somewhat defensively. She hated how she got caught up in it all again, how she got pulled into it, despite her best efforts. It had been a decade and it still happened, because you never forgot it, you never forgot the night your entire family was ripped away from you.

"Anyhow. My parents had been murdered in their bedroom. Throats slit. My brother and sister were missing. The police thought that my parents had been killed so the kids could be taken. They thought I would have been too if—if I had been there."

And there was the rub. Her family was killed, her brother and sister kidnapped…and she hadn't been there. She had been gone and in one night her entire life had come crashing down and she'd been left, standing in the rubble, with no one to turn to and no place to call home.

"And then we came," Sam murmured, shooting her a look that was all heartfelt sympathy. It made Ali squirm a bit because she didn't deserve it, she didn't want it, and she wasn't used to it. It was Dean though that was the worst. By far. He understood and that was much more awful. Hazel eyes met green and she was only able to hold his gaze for a few seconds before she took a large drink of her mostly-full beer and dropped her gaze, needing an excuse to stop looking at him.

"Yeah. And then you came."

"If I remember right, we never figured out what did it. Dad thought it was some kind of demi-god or ghoul or something. Something that eats kids or whatever."

"Yeah, I remember." Ali smiled tightly, finishing more of her drink, neglecting to comment further. Sam threw his brother an exasperated look but Dean just shrugged, eyes wide and hands spread, apparently not realizing what he had done.

"How did you become a hunter, Ali? From what I remember, your parents were—definitely not the type." Sam leaned closer to her, all puppy dog eyes and wrinkled concern. It was soothing, to be sure, and she felt herself responding to it, even if she had protested the feeling earlier.

"It was because of you all, because of you and your father. The police didn't know what was going on and you all seemed to have an idea so…I decided that I was going to learn."

"You were going to learn?" Dean laughed sardonically. "Sweetheart, you can't just learn."

"Yeah, well, I did," she snarled, leaning across the table to get in his face. "And I'm obviously doing well, you ass, seeing as I'm still breathing."

"For now."

"Oh, for now? For now?" Ali laughed in his face, lip curled and eyes in angry slits. "You are unbelievable."

"I am? I am? Let me tell you what you are, sweetheart. You—"

"Hey, hey, hey." Sam moved closer between them, voice low, eyes serious. "Calm it down, you two, unless you want us kicked out. Now, listen, we need to figure out how to work together. Peacefully."

Ali and Dean both turned to look at him, incredulous, eyebrows arching high. Sam threw his arms open in question.

"Come on, you know we have to. We're both after the same vampire and we might have information that the other hunter doesn't have. It only makes sense that we all work together."

"Sam, come on." Dean nodded surreptitiously Ali's way. "We're not working with someone else on this. Not on a vampire. We don't need help on this."

"We don't know that, Dean."

Ali watched them, jaw set, just as against it as Dean was. She worked alone, she didn't need to work with anyone else. She might have wanted the help from time to time, but Dean was right. This was a simple vampire, that was all. There was no reason to get help. It simply wasn't needed. One little parasite and the problem here in Minnesota would be solved. As far as she could tell, there was only the one. Once he was exterminated, she could move on, and continue her hunt for the thing that had killed her family.

"Sam, I don't think that's the best idea," Ali murmured, shooting a stabbing look Dean's way.

His eyes rolled and his lip curled. "I actually agree with the chick over here on this one, Sam. You and I work together and with no one else. We don't need her help with some bloodsucker."

Sam leaned over to him, hand on his shoulder, mouth close to his ear. Over the noise of the bar, Ali could barely hear him, but she did just barely.

"Dean, she might know something we don't." Dean shook his head, contemptuous, but Sam's fingers tightened on his brother's shoulder. Ali looked away from them, listening as intently as she possibly could. "Listen, Dean, listen. We don't know what she may or may not know. We don't know how long she's been here. What if she does know something we don't know?" She saw Dean sigh with aggravation from the corner of his eye before they both turned to look back at her and she met them with a sunny smile.

"All right, sweetheart." Dean huffed out another sigh from his nose. "Let's work this out together, okay? We'll go after this vampire together and then part ways."

"Who said I wanted to work with you?" Ali smiled sweetly when the two brothers looked at her, completely taken aback. "I work alone and have ever since I started doing this. I don't need the two of you tramping around and scaring off my mark like you did tonight. I came out to do this job alone and that's how I'm going to finish it."

Dean threw his hands up in the air and turned as if to leave but Sam grabbed him by the lapel of his jacket and stopped him. His eyes, intense, never wavered from her own.

"Come on. You have to see the sense in this. We might have information you don't and vice versa. Besides, three? It's much better than one. We'll go out, we'll cut off the son of a bitch's head, and be done with it. No muss, no fuss. We'll get it done fast and easy and then we can all go and do what we do best the way we want to do it."

Ali sat there, stewing, for a few moments. She hated it, but Sam was right. It rankled, but he made sense. They could go out and take the leech down faster if it was the three of them, instead of just her. And she wasn't going to just concede and let them have it. No, she'd worked her ass off on this case tracking this sucker down and she wasn't going to let that go without a fight. Teeth gritted as she glared at them, both handsome, both dangerous in their own right. She finally sighed, head drooping.

"Fine. Fine. We'll work together and then we'll all be on our jolly way. Deal?" She stuck her hand out.

Sam was the first to take it, his grip firm and his smile pleased. They both glanced over at Dean as Ali moved to shake his hand. He stared at her fingers for a few moments, those green eyes sliding to her face, before he, too, finally relented and their palms gripped. It was quick, fast, fast enough that she still felt the slide of his calluses against her fingers when he had stood and finished his beer.

"All right, ladies, let's get this show on the road. The faster we get this planned and that dick pinned down, the faster we can get out of here."

"Ladies?" Sam asked, face somewhat pinched.

"Yup. Your hair's almost as long as hers." Dean jerked a thumb her way and laughed, shrugging beneath the leather of his jacket. "Come on, Blondie, what are you waiting for? You already got your invitation." He grinned cheekily as Ali made a derisive face and finished her own beer, slamming it to the table along with money for her drink. She joined the Winchesters as they walked out of the bar, Dean and Sam joking and fake hitting each other now, clearly entirely and one hundred percent comfortable with each other, even around other people.

It made Ali wonder just what she was getting herself into by agreeing to this deal.


	3. Can't Find My Way Home

They went back to her motel.

There was absolutely no way Ali was going to go to theirs, not when there were two of them against her, not when she knew every way out, every hiding spot, and every weapon's cache in her own room. Dean had seemed annoyed, again, by her insisting, but Sam had agreed pretty easily so his brother had had no choice but come along, even if he didn't like it.

Her room was typical, with disgusting decor and furniture that had seen better days. It was serviceable, though, and that was all Ali asked for. Serviceable and clean. She led the Winchesters inside, watching them as they looked around, taking in the lime green walls and scuffed nightstand. Dean turned to look at her.

"Nice digs."

She just rolled her eyes and propped her hands on denim clad hips. "Well?"

"Well, what?" Dean crossed his arms over his chest, eyes narrowed, obstinate expression on his face.

"Come on. We're not going through this stupid dance again. We're here, we're alone, so spill."

"Why do we have to go first?"

Sam and Ali both rolled their eyes now before Sam sat on the edge of the bed in the room, looking up at her with those big, brown eyes. It made Ali shift a little, less combative. Sam wasn't a dick like Dean could be. She felt more comfortable around him—even if she knew it was a false comfort. He was still a hunter, for all the fact that he seemed like a giant, overgrown small animal in need of being taken care of.

"We heard about the attacks and decided to come and check it out. People disappearing, found with their throats ripped out? Yeah, it sounded like something we needed to check out. We got into town two or three days ago. We went to the morgue, checked the victims out. They died by exsanguination, which definitely made it our thing. We looked at the area all the people had disappeared from and found the parameters of this thing's hunting grounds. We waited until we saw it, and confirmed who it was, and then followed it into the warehouse."

Impressed despite herself, Ali nodded, mouth pursed with thought. They were good, she had to admit that. It wasn't surprising, considering they'd been in the life during all of theirs, but receiving confirmation of it was more than a little nice, she guessed. It made her trust the both of them just a little more.

"How did you 'confirm' your vamp really was one?" she asked, watching the both of them shrewdly.

Dean glanced at his brother, who nodded. He turned to her then, smile more like a smirk than anything else. He laughed a bit, eyebrows arching high.

"Well, there was some idiot girl who, we thought, was going to be his next Happy Meal."

It took a second to set in before Ali was laughing, leaning forward slightly with massive amounts of amusement coursing through her body. She looked at the both of them and laughed again, head shaking.

"Oh my god. You thought that thing was hunting me?"

"Wasn't he?" Dean shot back, angry now, she could tell, because she was making fun of them. It didn't decrease her humor though. Not in the least.

"As if. I was using myself as bait."

"You were—" Dean stopped and licked his lips, hand scrubbing over his face. "You were using yourself as bait?"

"Ali, that's really dangerous," Sam interjected. "Seriously. You don't do that when you don't have backup. What happens if things go wrong and something happens? There's no one there to get you out of the fire."

She shrugged, peeling off black leather to reveal the loose, lightweight gray sweater she'd been wearing beneath it. "If anything happens, then it happens. I don't have the luxury of a partner in this. I'm flying solo and so if I go down trying to take out some evil son of a bitch, then so be it. At least I'm going down fighting."

Both the brothers seemed appeased with this, even if they were still concerned about the fact that she'd been using herself as a trap. It was dangerous, she knew that, but she had no other choice. The world was limited when there was only you and whatever you carried, without the possibility of another gun coming in to help you. You did what you had to do.

"So what do you know?"

"We think it's a new leech." Dean took over the storytelling now, walking while Sam sat, arms behind his back. His eyes swept the floor. "The people disappearing are all kids, really, eighteen to twenty three. Fit. Pretty, you could say." Ali snorted a little and was quelled by a look. "We think this bastard is stealing kids close to how old it was when it was human and is trying to make a nest. And doing a bang up job of it."

"You think he's trying to and is killing them on accident."

"Don't you?"

"Maybe, maybe not."

"C'mon, Blondie, stop being so cryptic and give up the goods."

"We agreed to help each other," Sam added.

Ali looked at them and sighed. She didn't like this. She didn't like working with other people, even if it was the Winchesters. Whenever she did partner up, it was begrudgingly. She should trust them, she knew. They'd been there those long years ago. It was because of them that she had had something to get her out of the hole that had been blasted into her life when her parents had been massacred and her siblings taken. She had enrolled in karate, insisted on learning how to shoot a gun, and spent hours upon hours researching everything she could about the things that went bump in the night.

Until she met Rhett Michaels and her life had truly begun.

"Yeah, okay. I'm thinking the same thing you all are. New vamp, left alone for whatever reason. Trying to fill the void by making more of its own kind and failing. It makes sense. A new one wouldn't be able to make new bloodsuckers—the temptation of the blood in the beginning would be too much."

"How did you find out about all of this? No one mentioned another fed being on the scene when we asked to see the bodies."

She laughed. "That's because I wasn't trying to be a fed. Said I was another cop from a few states over and had something similar and wanted to see if there were any ties. I found you get more of the story faster when you pose as a colleague instead of Big Brother. Cops are more likely to talk shop—"

"With one of their own instead of a fed. Yeah, we get it. How'd you track it down?"

"Pretty much the same way you did. Figured out what its snatch zone was and then persuaded it to come."

"You put yourself in its path like an idiot. No backup, no one to help you."

Ali shrugged, not offended in the least. "You do what you've got to do."

It made Dean's jaw clench, made him lick his lips in a habit she was beginning to see was something he had a particular affinity for, but he remained silent. Sam looked at her, mouth tilted into a slight smile.

"So, we pretty much all know the same thing."

"Except for one thing." Ali grinned, going to her jacket. She unzipped a pocket and drew out a slim piece of paper. She passed it toward Dean and leaned back against the TV stand, smile all satisfaction. He glanced down at it, frowning, before passing it to Sam.

"It's a receipt from some bar. What does that have to do with anything?"

"It's in the heart of this thing's hunting grounds. It's where it's finding most of its victims."

"How do you know that?"

"It's where it found me." Ali smiled as Dean quickly rearranged his idea of the situation and how to handle it. She watched him, watched green eyes flick from side to side, fingers running over his chin in thought. She turned her attention to Sam then. He seemed to take stock of things much quicker than his brother.

"So, we go there, see it take someone, follow it—"

"And then cut its fucking head off," Dean finished.

"That was my original plan. I don't see why it couldn't work again."

"Except that it has your scent."

Ali sighed, watching them, eyebrows high in disappointment. "You don't think I don't know how to stop that? I know how to hide my tracks, boys."

She swore she saw Dean involuntarily wince as if she had been hoping she wouldn't know about that. See? Hunters could never be trusted. A second's glance was shared between the brothers before Sam stood, seeming all the taller than he had since he'd been sitting.

"I think it would work fine again. He doesn't know about Dean and me."

"You were in that office building too."

"Yeah, but he hasn't seen us, he doesn't have our scent. He might know another two hunters are on his trail. So, we blend in, we take him down, and we move on. Simple enough."

"It always seems that easy," Ali muttered before she sighed. "I don't see another option though, not when this one definitely seems like the best alternative. So what do we do now?"

"We get a good night's sleep and go out ready to kick some ass tomorrow night when this thing climbs out from its hole."

"Sounds like a plan to me."

They exchanged phone numbers and coordinated a time to meet up before they headed toward the bar for their stakeout. She watched as they communicated by look again and had to bite her tongue to stop the irritated remark she wanted to make. Were they always going to do this? Dean toward her, face completely serious.

"One of us is staying here with you tonight."

"What? Why!" Rage was there in a finger snap. "I can take care of myself and have been doing so for years. I burned the damn stuff exactly like I was supposed to on the drive over—he doesn't have my scent anymore!"

"It's still best to make sure. We're not arguing here, Ali. We don't want you to lose your head any more than you want to."

She glared at both of them, feeling the heat in her face. And now she was being babysat? She was just as capable as them, maybe even more so because she did work alone. How dare they?

"No."

"Ali," Dean warned, almost growling.

"No. I can take care of my fucking self and don't need the two of you babysitting me for a job that's open and close. I won't let it happen."

"Too bad."

Her head throbbed and she thought was going to have an apoplexy. She was swinging before she really knew that she was, fist striking out toward's Dean face. He caught her wrist, looking at her without any trace of amusement.

"Hitting me isn't going to help anything. It's been decided. Sam is staying here with you tonight and we're meeting tomorrow, same place and same time as we just talked about. Get used to it, Blondie. We're not letting another hunter go down so you're going to have to suck it up and deal with it."

Ali inhaled through her nose, jerking her arm from his grasp. She sent another seething look their way, hands curled into fists.

"I could shoot you, you know."

"But you won't."

She and Dean glared at each other, the both of them stubborn, neither of them backing down. Dean took a step forward until they were just a breath apart, looming over her intimidatingly. In that moment, she remembered he was a hunter. Remembered he had fought vampires, werewolves, ghosts, the whole gambit. A hunter, let alone a girl smaller than him, wasn't going to scare him. She also realized that, up close, his eyes seemed to have a ring of brown around the pupil.

It was that which broke her concentration, it was that that made her tear her gaze from his and step back.

"Fine. But you're sleeping on the floor." She gave Sam a poisonous look before she turned on her heel and walked to the bathroom, closing the door with a slam. She was beat and she knew it. Dammit, but she knew it.

Having the Winchesters here was just complicating things, again, more than it was easing them. She should never have agreed to work with them. She should never have shared her information with them. She should have just said she didn't know much else and then they could have talked and she could have suggested they go their separate ways since they all knew the same thing. Do some recon. And then she could have gone back and finished what she had started before she was away to the next job, the next clue. Anything.

"Take care of her." She barely heard Dean's voice through the door, but deep voices carried, especially in such a small room. "Make sure she doesn't go anywhere and make sure she's still alive in the morning."

"Yeah, yeah. I will."

"And Sammy—have some fun, will you? It's not a shame."

"Dean—"

"No, I'm serious. The chick is smoking, even if she has an attitude bigger than Texas. Get some if you can, huh? Looks like she'd be good."

"I can hear you!" Ali called through the door, furious.

She heard Dean laugh and say goodbye to his brother before the door closed, finally, and she was left alone with Sam. Sam in the front room while she sat in the bathroom on the toilet having a temper tantrum.

At least it was Sam.


	4. Hot Blooded

She came out from the bathroom a few minutes later after she'd calmed down, a little red-cheeked but unapologetic. Sam smiled as soon as he saw her, sitting on the edge of the bed with his long, long legs splayed out in front of him. Ali watched him for a second, amazed once again by his extreme height. She shook it off and crossed her arms over her chest.

"So, you're my babysitter for the night, huh?"

"Looks like." Sam shrugged, lips pulled to the side apologetically as his hands spread. Ali watched him for a moment before she felt the last dregs of her offense draining from her body.

"You don't want to be here any more than I want you to be." It was a statement, not a question, and Sam was nodding in agreement.

"I honestly think you've been hunting for a while and you know the drill when it comes to vampires, but Dean isn't convinced and it's easier than arguing with him."

Ali sat on the edge of the bed beside Sam, honestly intrigued. She thought that Sam just followed Dean, no questions asked, but to find out that he had a mind of his own, bad as it sounded, was a kind of revelation. It was just so clear who the older brother was and who was in charge simply by watching them.

"Really? It seems like the two of you don't have differences of opinion often."

"We don't. Not really." He shrugged his massive shoulders again. How had Sam gotten so big? Did Ovaltine really do that or had he been hit by radiation in high school? Because, holy shit, he had never looked like he was going to grow up to be a giant bear of a man those brief few days that she had known him. "When we do, it's usually not on anything too big. When it is, we talk it out, maybe yell a bit, and get over it."

Those dark eyes slid her way, meeting her own head on. Ali remembered ten years before, when she'd been sitting on the front steps of her friend's house, terrified out of her wits. There had been so many people around that morning, removing the bodies of her parents from her own home and looking for her siblings. There had been the people curious to see what was going on, woken by the sirens, and the lights, flashing all over the house, eerily bright in the pre-dawn haze, casting strange shadows and distortions over everything. It had been late afternoon then and steaming hot, hot enough that the concrete steps beneath her had seemed to burn but she didn't care, not when she was empty, not when she was desolate, floating in a sea of disconsolation deeper than the ocean and wide enough to drown. She had heard the rumble of a car engine and hadn't even looked up, eyes too heavy and tired to move. She was in her own world, numb to anything and everything but the pain and guilt rioting inside her. There had been footsteps she hadn't heard and then a voice she had, pulling her from her cocoon.

"Are you Alison Russell?"

A big, scruffy man had stood in front of her, dressed in a suit, although the tie seemed crooked. Little details she noticed, like the stains on the edge of his sleeves, as if his suit wasn't taken care of well, and the two boys who lurked behind him, one older, driving age, the boy who made out with girls and actually knew what he was doing, and one younger, around her own age, scrawny with curious eyes. She had looked up at the man, trying to focus, and nodded stiffly.

"Yeah." Her had voice cracked, from overuse, from disuse, from lack of hydration. Crying for hours tended to do that. "Who are you?"

He had extended a hand she didn't take, his smile soft and friendly. "I'm Detective Phil Ehart and these are my boys, Mark and Donnie." He turned slightly then, showing off his two sons. "I was hoping we could talk to you about today."

Mrs. Jacobs had come to the door then, alerted by the car maybe or the sound of voices. She had been a pretty, petite black woman with the curliest hair. Ali had always been fascinated by it, because her friend Jory had inherited it and she had been so jealous, bewailing her own pin-straight locks.

"What's going on here?" Mrs. Jacobs had sounded nice enough, but Ali had been around long enough to notice the steel under her voice and knew that trouble was coming if she didn't like what the detective had to say. Ali knew that it meant a spanking and a reprimand for Jory—she didn't know what Mrs. Jacobs was going to do to this man.

The detective had smiled easily while the boys tried to look at what was going on surreptitiously, still hidden by their father. Ali had been more interested in them than the detective, because she had never seen one bring his kids with him, not even in the movies. She wondered if they were allowed to.

"Hello, ma'am. I'm Detective Phil Ehart," Detective Phil Ehart repeated. "I'm here because of what happened this morning." Ali tried to just focus on his words and not the images and memories they brought up for her, because she didn't want to think about this morning, she didn't want to think about everything that happened. She had flinched involuntarily and Mrs. Jacobs had noticed with a glance.

When she had turned to the detective again, her face was much harder, as was her tone. "I don't know that that's a good idea. She's been through enough. What do you need to ask her anyhow? She wasn't there any more than I was."

He had just smiled again, although a sadness was on his face, scratched into dark eyes and the laugh lines around his mouth. Her dad had had those too.

"I understand, ma'am. I just—would like to clear up a few things." Ali had felt his gaze linger on her again but she pretended not to hear what he had said, focusing on the boys. The younger one looked sad, watching her, while the older one just watched their dad, although she saw his eyes drop from time to time to look at her instead. He was just as curious as his brother was, he was just trying not to be. Her brother, Jared, did the same thing too. He acted like because he was the oldest he had to be tough and grown-up. Or he had…

That had made the tears well in Ali's eyes, made her heart seize and break again. Jared was gone and Ginny was too. Her parents dead. Dead, dead, dead in black body bags and her brother and sister nowhere to be found. She had leaped up from the steps, blinded by her tears, and pushed roughly past the two boys, knocking the younger one—Donnie maybe—to the ground. She ran without sight, needing to get away, pushing herself harder and harder, legs pumping until they screamed. She had to get away. Had to had to had to.

It felt like seconds although she was sure it had been minutes before a hand closed over her arm and yanked her rudely to a stop. Her head snapped back, teeth actually rattling, as she was jolted from flight. The older boy had her in a firm grip, jaw clenched grimly. She saw his eyes were green then. Ali tried to pull away, clawing at him, kicking, sobbing all the while, but he just held on tightly, refusing to let her go. The younger one caught up to them, gasping somewhat.

"Let me go!" Ali screamed, writhing, twisting to get away. She couldn't stand her thoughts, couldn't stand being at that house where everything had began. She needed to get away, far far away, away from it all so she could wake up because it was just a dream.

"Mark," the younger boy had panted. "You should let her go."

"She's just going to run away," Mark responded and curled his fingers tighter around her arm.

Ali sobbed and batted at Mark, trying to get away, pulling futilely, outweighed, outgunned, and outmeasured. "Let me go! Just let me go! Let me go!"

Mark winced because of her piercing shriek but kept hold of her tightly, just as tenacious as a small dog with a prize. "Uh-uh, sweetheart. Sorry. You're just gonna bolt again and I'm going to have to catch you. Better if you just stay."

Ali fought on desperately for a few moments more before she gave up and stood there woodenly, staring at the asphalt beneath her feet. She realized she was in the middle of the street, several blocks over, close to the park she must have been headed toward. It was the park between her house and Jory's. Or it had been.

"You good now?" Mark questioned gingerly.

Ali just nodded and he let her go, standing back with his brother, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. She wondered how he could wear them in the muggy, stifling heat. She was coated with sweat now, her hair sticking to her face. She pushed it back, heedless of her appearance.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Donnie had asked. He had moved forward, laying his fingers on her wrist. Ali had flinched but he had kept them there, looking at her with dark eyes, his empathy such that Ali felt it like another hand reaching out to touch her. She had sniffled then, head shaking, lip quivering, before she had been sobbing again and Donnie had reached out, hugging her, hugging her hard.

Ali slowly pulled out of the memory, brief seconds long, after looking into Sam's eyes, the both of them ten years older now and adults, no longer kids. And their lives had become so tangled and twisted and strange in that time. She knew that, knew it because of her own experience and by looking at him now, at this boy who had reached out to her and been a friend to her during the worst days of her life. He had been through things too, good and bad. He had lived ten year's worth of memories. He had grown up.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked now, in present time, when he wasn't playing at being Donnie. His brow was furrowed with concern, she noted, and he had reached out to touch her arm. It made goosebumps race along her skin, the deja vú was so sharp.

"Where's your dad?" she whispered, caught in his eyes again, almost unaware of the question she had just asked.

Sam instantly withdrew, both figuratively and literally. She watched the frustration and anguish snake across his face before he turned, gaze dropping to the floor, the hand on her arm falling to his lap. She felt her belly clutch and knew then, knew before he looked back up at her, the smile on his face sad and small.

"He died a while ago. I'm kind of an orphan now too." He laughed humorlessly and shrugged and that was what did it. His attempt at humor even though he was clearly upset just made her heart break. She laid a hand on his leg in sympathy and support and he turned to her, tears gleaming.

Before she consciously knew what she was doing, Ali leaned forward, lips pressing against his own, an attempt at helping, at soothing, at comforting. Anything to stop Sam Winchester from crying because he had done the same for her long years ago, making her smile and laugh and think about other things than the death and complete disappearance of her family.

She felt Sam hesitate for a second, could sense his uncertainty, before his mouth moved beneath hers and he turned, one huge hand capturing her face. She could taste his desperate grief as tongues slid and acknowledged, could sense his loss and responded to it, moving closer, pressing against him. His hand slid into her hair, gripping it like a rope, like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to reality.

His mouth smeared down her throat, all lips and teeth and tongue, making her shudder. Too long. It'd been too long since she'd been had and had in return. She felt goosebumps erupting along her skin and she gasped, fingers bunching in the choppy hair at the back of his head. His lips circled around the neckline of her sweater before he looked up at her, his distress burned away and replaced by something much darker.

"I didn't plan on this," he murmured. "I want you to know that."

"I didn't either but isn't there some stupid quote about things happening when you least expect it?" she laughed breathlessly.

"Something like that."

Lips lingered and trespassed again, need apparent, want overarching, pain and loss and tragedy forgotten as the heat increased and he pulled the sweater over her head, throwing it the floor as they kissed and were suddenly standing, hands on her hips, before he slowly started sliding the denim down. Ali pushed the jacket from his shoulders, taking his flannel with it. There was just a thin gray T-shirt then. Sam abandoned her jeans, loose and sagging about her hips, to pull his shirt off, throwing it away as she unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, leaving them in the same state as her own.

Sam smiled, fingers hooking round one of her belt loops. He looked her over, head to toe, and laughed. "I have to say, I didn't imagine you looking so—"

"Girly beneath all my clothes?"

"Yeah." He laughed again, leaning forward to kiss at the swell of her breast above the line of green lace. Ali shivered and he looked up at her, smirking now, obviously satisfied by her response.

He slowly, so slowly, slipped her jeans off, driving her absolutely mad because she hated slow, absolutely hated it, because she felt much too steeped in feeling and she didn't want to be, she just wanted fast, she wanted reckless, she wanted bright fireworks and screams, not trembling and gasps. She stepped out of the indigo fabric and then Sam looked at her again, nodding.

"I'm still a girl even if I'm a hunter," Ali whispered, feeling those eyes tracing over the bra and even lacier matching panties she wore, all in green, fun because she didn't exactly get to wear skirts and do her makeup every day.

"Clearly," he whispered. Sam shoved his own jeans down in seconds and grabbed her, turning, the both of them falling to the edge of her bed, his lips hot and heavy, the heat and fury she had wanted in full effect now.

It was fast then, and frenzied.

Her bra was on the floor before she could even blink and his mouth was feasting there, making her arch beneath him, ragged cries expelled viciously from her throat before his hand dove beneath the lace covering her, his fingers finding her and sliding easily within. It made her buck, crying out even louder, shocked by the intensity. Her hands scrabbled at his shoulders, scratching down his back until she found the line of white briefs and pulled, hands smoothing down bare skin as his fingers danced inside her, making eyes close and her breath come uneven.

Before she could settle down, he had filled her in one long, thick stroke.

Ali groaned, fingers digging into his ass involuntarily, her body rioting and screaming at her, her brain shutting down to everything but the sensation. He thrusted and moved her easily, entirely too easily, so they weren't hanging off the bed.

It was fast and it was full of friction and heat and she was entwined about him, meeting him, gasping because of it, because it had been so long, and he loomed above her, Sam, sweet Sam who wasn't so sweet. Lips tangled and locked as they battered against each other and suddenly she was on top, his huge hands over her breasts, and it was a whirlwind, beautiful and vicious, until she shuddered and moaned, hands planted on his chest, the orgasm hitting her hard—but not as hard as Sam when he rolled and she was on her back again and he was slamming into her, again and again and again. He jerked, hitting his own ending and swore beneath his breath, the roaring in her ears preventing her from hearing much.

Ali, spent, panted and gasped for breath beneath him, dazed and pleased and much more relaxed than she had been earlier. Sam, carefully now, as if he remembered his own strength, rolled to her side, one arm thrown over her casually.

"Sorry if I hurt you," he murmured.

Ali just laughed, turning to look at him, hair sticking to her face, lips bruised, eyes glinting with satisfaction. "I don't think I complained."

"You didn't."

They laid, quiet, for a few minutes more before she pressed her lips to his again, softly, almost sweetly. "Thanks for that. I think you were the best babysitter I ever had. And I think you have now earned bed privileges."

It made him laugh, really laugh, body shaking and she joined him, quickly acclimating to this change of events. It shouldn't have surprised her really. She'd had a crush on Sam at thirteen and apparently it had only been awoken by seeing him again.

Except now, at twenty three, she'd definitely been able to act on it most satisfactorily in a way that her thirteen year old self hadn't been able to.


	5. Green Peppers

Morning came all too soon.

Ali woke, somewhat groggy, lethargic from her lack of long sleep. She hated when she missed the deep sleep portion of her REM cycle but it was what it was. Her schedule just simply didn't allow for it sometimes, considering her job was to exterminate the things that went bump in the night. It meant you had to look for them at night and so sleep, when you were lucky enough to get it, was rarely long enough to really satisfy her.

An arm tightened around her waist and she flinched, automatically hurtling toward her fight response. Memory came rushing in as she twisted around to see Sam smiling at her sleepily, brown eyes slits and hair a tousled mess. Heart still slamming in her chest, she felt the adrenaline seep from her muscles as she smiled back, remembering the night before and their laughing conversations before sleep had claimed them.

It was a good feeling.

"Good morning," he murmured, voice deep, cracking slightly from misuse over the few hours of sleep they'd managed to steal.

Ali smiled, amazed at her good fortune. She had thought running into the Winchesters last night was bad luck? This was far from it. Sam was sweet, he was kind, he was great in bed. And now here she was, waking up snuggled against him, feeling a bit like an oversized teddy bear, the both of them smiling and happy. So what if it was only a one time thing? She'd had them happen before and she was so happy when they went like this—when you could be genial and comfortable with each other the morning after. It made everything easier and thank God for it. When you had been with someone as intimately as sex allowed, being awkward just wasn't an option in her book.

Especially when it was Sam Winchester with his large hands and sweet smile.

"Morning," Ali replied, eyes caught in his own. She felt his arm tighten around her and enjoyed, for the moment, just being female and being completely dominated in size and stature by the man at her side. She felt like a doll and it was a strange feeling because she was of middling height for a woman. It was kind of nice, actually. "Sleep well?"

"Good enough." He shrugged and she understood. You never exactly got enough sleep, especially when you were smack dab in the middle of a job. "How about you?"

"The same." She leaned forward to kiss him, soft and light. A morning kiss, full of the sweet optimism a new day brought. "Well, up and at 'em, cutie. I need to shower and get my stuff together so tonight will go off without a hitch, God willing."

"That's a good idea." He sat up in bed as Ali swung her feet over the side and stood, naked and unashamed of it. She knew she looked good and also knew hunting had a lot to do with it. Running, fighting, cutting things' heads off—yeah, it tended to keep you in shape. She padded to the small bathroom, snagging a towel on the way, looking forward to the long and hot shower that was sure to wake her up.

She and Sam went to lunch at a small café afterwards, the both of them clean and freshly scrubbed; Ali dressed in motorcycle jeans, a hooded fleece, and a denim jacket. Sam wore his clothes from the night before, slightly wrinkled but clean enough. He had called Dean, despite her annoyance, and told him where they were going. Dean showed up just as their drinks were being dropped off, looking slightly more fresh. Ali knew Dean what had happened before as soon as the childishly large smile lit up his face. He slid in to the booth next to Sam, jabbing him in the side with a friendly elbow.

"Either that vamp got you last night, Sammy, or someone got you with a pretty impressive love bite."

He turned an innocent smile to Ali, who just scowled, unimpressed. Dean watched her for a moment more, obviously expecting a reaction, but she just crossed her arms over her chest, brow raised. He finally glanced down, disappointment obvious, before he reached across and snagged Sam's coffee to take a gulp.

"So, besides the obvious, any new developments?"

"Not really." Sam shrugged negligently, stealing his mug from his brother to wrap his large hands around it, appreciating the warmth. He glanced at Ali and away. "It's not like we are able to learn anything new. We just need to go there tonight and shank this things ass."

"Well, not shank. I'd prefer gank."

Sam threw Dean an exasperated look but Dean just shrugged. "Hey, you're the one always correcting me. Thought I'd return the favor."

Ali watched Sam rolled her eyes and smiled to herself. She may have thought Dean was a dick, but she appreciated the dynamic the two brothers had. You could tell they were close and knew all there was to know about each other. It was apparent in the way they talked to each other, whether serious or joking, and how they ragged on each other, a wealth of knowledge at their hands to be able to.

They ordered lunch, sandwiches for Ali and Sam, a burger for Dean, and sat discussing how best to go after the bloodsucker they were after. The boys straight out said Ali was not allowed to be in the bar because the vampire would recognize her. She argued, of course, but was finally beaten by pure and simple logic. They didn't want to screw this up again and the leech was sure to recognize her; he'd be able to vanish and melt away before they ever had time to catch him and they just couldn't afford for it to happen. She finally consented to waiting outside in case he went out a way they weren't expecting.

As their meals were delivered, they came to the conclusion that Sam and Dean would go inside and blend in while she waited. They'd wait to see if the monster picked anyone up and then tail him, assuming he went back to the nest he was trying to establish.

It was a good plan, the best they could come up with, and they'd have to be satisfied with it.

She would never tell them but she was beginning to appreciate having a team to work with rather than going this one solo. Of course, if Sam and Dean had never showed up her mark wouldn't have been scared off in the first place, but even if she had missed the window of opportunity by herself, it would have been an absolute headache to exterminate this particular piece of vermin since he knew who she was. Having Sam and Dean to act as watchdogs and help out was something she was coming to be grateful for. If only a little.

Working by herself was preferred but sometimes it was just so much damn easier to have someone else, or even more than one someone else, along for the ride. Someone to watch your back and make sure you got out of any spots of trouble, someone to just have a conversation with. Watching Sam snag some of Dean's fries and the resulting fallout made her want some of that, just a little bit. Just someone to hang with at the end of the day, have a drink with, someone to take her mind of all the bad, off all the monsters and the blood, and give her just a little bit of happiness.

God, since when had she turned into such a sap?

They sat for a while longer, just talking casually, relaxing before their work began tonight. Dean ordered apple pie in addition to his burger and wolfed it down happily. Ali just watched him, amazed despite herself at the amount of joy he got from such a simple thing. Sam turned to her, smiling widely. They were trying to just be normal, to be friends, to not think about tonight. Ali understood and joined in wholeheartedly. She didn't have this, she didn't get downtime, she didn't get laughter. She had made few friends during this gig and even then she wasn't going to call them up before a hunt to talk to them and take her mind off the fact if she wasn't better, stronger, faster than the creature she was after that she wasn't going to be able to talk to them again. She had the feeling that Sam and Dean tried to return to that world of normal afterwards too, just tried to be Average Joes as best they could and watch some TV or go out for a drink. She wished she had that, more than she had known she wanted it previously, after seeing them act the way they were.

"So, do you like pie?" Sam asked her, laughing as he flicked a glance at his brother. Dean just rolled his eyes, hunched over his plate, mouth full of cinnamon fruit.

Ali chuckled, looking at him as well, shaking off her thoughts. "Apparently not enough. Is this a genetic thing for you two or is it just him?"

"It's just him. So is the cholesterol death wish."

That made Ali laugh but Dean wasn't having any of it. He swallowed with an audible gulp, fork pausing momentarily in his attempts to kill himself via choking.

"I like burgers. What's the big deal? I'm not eating that rabbit food shit you seem so in love with. I didn't even know how that keeps you still working, Gigantor. You'd think you'd need more than some leafy stuff and water."

"The fact that I'm trying to prevent having a heart attack before fifty isn't a bad thing." Sam seemed slightly offended and it made Ali smile, kicked back and just watching the show before her. Yeah, it'd be nice to have this around for a while. Her envy was unparalleled.

"Yeah, but it's sure as hell not fun. Who says we're gonna make it to fifty anyway, huh?" The fork swung Sam's way, Dean apparently making his point with it. Literally. "Living isn't guaranteed, man, and you of all people should know that. I'm gonna enjoy myself as much as possible, no questions asked."

"So if that means a heart attack, herpes, or hepatitis you're okay with that?"

"I think I'm gonna go out swinging before any of that can happen so, yeah, I'm okay with that."

Sam shook his head, looking out the window at the snow and slush in the street outside, his great shoulders heaving with the breath he exhaled. Ali made a tsk sound that Dean ignored, settling back to finish his pie with genuine earnestness.

"That's not a healthy mentality, you know," she finally suggested.

A shoulder jerked as he glanced up at her, a bit of preserve from the pie lingering in one corner of his mouth. She did have to say, being completely unbiased, that Dean had a much better mouth of the two brothers. But that was just noticing. It didn't mean anything.

"It's realistic, sweetheart, and that's all that matters." He winked and stabbed into his pie. She just scoffed, eyes rolling now too.

"Yeah, okay."

He smiled at her, mouth full. Ali snorted and then dragged her wallet out, slapping a few bills on the table before she stood, shrugging into her jacket.

"Nice as this has been, boys, I need to get back and get my gear all together. I'll see you tonight, same time, same place as we agreed."

"We'll see you back at your room as soon as we get all our stuff together." Sam looked at her and she knew he meant well, she knew he was just trying to be nice, but it still stung a bit.

"Sam, I appreciate it but I don't need you watching out for me. That thing's not going to come and try to gobble me up in broad daylight."

"Who said it was about the vampire? Maybe we're just gonna sit and strategize some more."

"About what?" she asked, throwing her hands up in the air, annoyed now. "We did all the strategizing just now! I was babysat last night and I'm not going to let it happen again. It's daylight, it's not coming after me, and you're not going to sit and make sure I can tie my shoes correctly and not put my pants on backwards again."

Sam opened his mouth to retort, clearly, but Dean wiped his mouth with a napkin, removing the traces of pie from his face, and shook his head slightly at his brother. He looked up at her, unamused and not hiding it.

"You know just as well as us that vampires can go into the sun, Ali." His eyebrows arched high, his eyes green fire. He wasn't going to be budged on this—his face said it all. "We're not taking chances here, all right? We're sure you're capable, we're sure you're okay, but we've lost a lot of the people close to us or that we run into and we're not letting it happen here. End of story."

She may have been fuming, may have felt the anger coursing through her veins, but she remembered Sam last night, talking with her, tears shining in his big brown eyes as he admitted he was just as much an orphan as she. To see him now was to see the resolve dominating the lines of his face and the grief lurking deep in those eyes.

It made the fight go out of her.

Ali sighed, head dropping, gaze falling. She could sense Dean's grim sense of triumph as she slowly sat, fingers brushing over her face wearily. It looked like she was stuck with them, whether she liked it or not.

"Fine."

"Good." Dean slapped denim thighs, shrugging beneath his layers. "I'm going to go back to our place and grab our stuff and meet you and Sam over at your room in just a bit. We can go over everything again there to make sure we've got it and put our stuff together."

He rose to his feet, tall and broad-shouldered in the white fluorescence of the café and its stark walls. He seemed larger than life in that moment, his leather jacket slightly too large for him and his jeans scarred and well-worn, all of it in a good way. He looked every inch capable and deadly and dangerous, in more than one sense. Where Sam was tall, much taller than the average man, there was an inherent sweetness to him. It wasn't present with Dean. He was a weapon in human form, ready for anything. And there was more, a whole lot more, another layer added to it, this one unseen, but she pushed those thoughts aside and nodded.

"Sounds good."

Dean grunted in affirmation before he threw down bills for his own meal and strode outside into the bitter cold and steely skies, his strides long and confident. Sam looked at her from across the booth and smiled. Ali found herself smiling back, as comfortable as ever with him.

"You ready?"

"Yeah, yeah."

She stood again, finally, and walked side by side with Sam out the door into the blustery, cold afternoon. Hands slipped into pockets, searching for warmth, as she grabbed her bright purple hood and slid it over her head, looking for a bit of respite from a wind that had turn biting.

Her thoughts were scattered everywhere as she and Sam walked to her car, shoulders hunched against the cold. They were children running rampant that she couldn't collect and herd together. She was thinking about the hunt tonight, about everything that could go wrong. She had thought last night was going to be a cinch but obviously a wrench had been chucked into that plan. What could go wrong this time around? She was thinking about where she needed to go after this, assuming last night worked out. She was thinking about how her cash was running low and how she might need to run some scams or hustle a couple of johns to replenish it.

Most of all, she was thinking of Sam at her side, tall and strong and sweet, Sam who had been voracious the night before and had hardly touched her today. It was to be expected, of course, since they had other things to focus on, but it made her somewhat nostalgic and just the tiniest bit sad. She would have liked another bolster against tonight.

They reached the car and it was like he had read her mind.

He grabbed her wrist, slowly tugging her into him, and leaned down, far down, one hand on her face, his tongue exploring her mouth, slow and soft, entirely different than it had been in her room last night. She moved closer as the kiss spun, longer than the long heartbeats it took, before they both leaned back.

Sam smiled, brushing her hair back behind her ear, eyes hooked to her own. "I've been wanting to do that all day."

Ali flushed, actually flushed, the cold suddenly not so cold anymore. Her fingers found his and slid against them as she returned his expression. "I'm glad."

It made him laugh, head shaking, before he kissed her again, quickly, almost like a habit, before he gave her fingers a squeeze and ambled to the passenger side of her car. Ali followed, feeling some of her worries about tonight ebbing.

It was funny how that happened sometimes.


	6. Paranoid

He watched them from across the street in his car, fingers tapping against the steering wheel, almost as incessant as the thoughts that whirled around inside his head, tap-tap-tapping against his skull. They make a nice pair, even he has to admit that. Sam was smiling, which was good to see, their mouths meeting every so often playfully. He could almost hear their laughs and giggles before they got into her car and left to go back to her room, so they could meet up and fine tune their plan of attack for the coming night.

Dean was more glad than he could say that his brother had let loose and obviously had a fun night with Ali. It had been a long time and it wasn't healthy for a man to go so long without—it made you all cranky and upset with a bug up your ass. And it was especially good for Sam, who was somewhat constipated all by himself anyway. He couldn't really explain why he had this nagging feeling that something wasn't exactly what it seemed. He didn't know why he had this niggling suspicion that there was something afoot. He just did, and when his gut was telling him there was something up, he listened.

Call it instinct.

Dean turned the ignition on in his car and slid Baby into gear, watching Sam and Ali drive off, oblivious. He hooked around into a U-turn and headed back toward the motel he and Sam had nabbed a room at, although it seemed like only he was the only one going to be using it. Wasn't this a change of events. He slipped his cell phone from his coat pocket, glancing at it as he continued driving, all too good at multitasking while he was driving now, after thousands of hours in his car.

He scrolled down through his contacts and threw his ear to his phone, stopping at a sign and glancing both ways before he proceeded, easily sliding his car into gear, foot on the clutch and the accelerator. The phone rang once, twice, three times, before it picked up.

There was a clamor in the background, glasses clinking and people talking and laughing. The woman's voice was deep, comforting, familiar.

"This is The Roadhouse."

"Hey, Ellen, it's Dean."

"Oh hey, Dean, how's it going?"

He could just imagine her standing behind the bar, the tried and true men and women who made up their kind scattered around it, talking and gossiping and drinking away their worries of the day at scratched and scarred tables or the bar. The jukebox in the corner was going and weapons were everywhere, for protecting or for cleaning. He could see it all, clear as day, until he remembered himself and the gray gloom that made up this Michigan day.

"Hey, I hate to do this again but have you heard of Ali Russell?"

There was a pause. "Yeah, honey, I have. You wondering about her like Sam was Gordon?"

Dean scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck, feeling the short hair bristling beneath his palm. He took in another view of the stony buildings and sighed.

"Yeah, yeah, I guess I am. You know anything?"

He hated asking, he did. He wanted to trust Ali like Sam apparently did but he couldn't, not when their lives could possibly hang in the balance. It may have just been a simple vamp, but that didn't mean things could go wrong and he needed to know how this girl hunted and if she had a reputation—good or bad. He knew all Sam's strengths and weaknesses. He knew he could depend on him for anything, knew that his brother had his back. He didn't know this girl. He knew nothing about her except for the vague memories ten years gone of a girl with huge, panicked eyes and his own confusion and fear clogging his throat, clamped down tight because of Sammy. He didn't want to scare Sammy.

"Yeah, yeah, I do."

"So?" he prompted.

"So? She's a hunter. She hunts things. Real smart girl, seems quick on her feet. She saddled up with Rhett Michaels for a while."

"Huh. That's interesting." He mulled that over as he continued driving, not really focused on it, attention held by what Ellen was telling him. He couldn't imagine the mouthy, smart ass girl hooked up with anyone, not with the attitude on her.

"What's that, honey?"

"Nothing. She just doesn't seem the type."

"Yeah, she and Michaels split about, oh, two or three years ago now. They'd been together for a while before that though. Heard he was the one who got her into the business and taught her everything."

Dean considered that, fingers tapping against the steering wheel, engine idling as he waited for a light to turn. God, he hated stoplights. Almost as much as stop signs. Give him an open road with no end in sight any day over that shit.

"This Michaels guy. I've never heard of him before. What's he like?"

"You mean what was he like. He's either dead or out of the business, I never did find out. He was a decent enough guy and a good hunter. Got the job done, no muss, no fuss, and moved on to the next gig."

"Sounds like an old-timer." He threw it out there, an observation that wasn't quite as much a subtle question.

He was digging and he knew it but he needed to find out, had to know. They were working a job here and he needed to know what the girl was like. Plus, Sam liked her. He needed to look into her for that too. Once an older brother, always an older brother. Even if Sam could sit at a bar with him and order all the frou-frou girly drinks he wanted and was taller than him by a good couple of inches, he was still his kid brother and he was always going to watch out for him.

"Nah, he's about your age, maybe a little older. Real handsome guy if you ask me."

"So, what, were they together or something?"

Ellen's laugh was rich in his ear and the sign for the Starlite Motel loomed high in his windshield, drawing closer and closer. Home sweet shitty home. Wasn't it nice? Magic fingers and free ice aside, he was getting kind of sick of staying in crappy, rundown, cheap motels all the time.

"Why the sudden interest, Dean? You mooning over some hunter now?"

"No." He denied it vehemently and heard Ellen laugh again. He eked out a sigh and scrubbed a hand over his face. "We're just working a job with her and I want to know more about her."

There was a sudden explosion of noise in the background on her end, scuffles and yells and muffled threats. Through it all, he heard Ellen threatening to bust some heads unless "you dumbasses sit down and shut the hell up." He heard laugher and smiled to himself, picturing it all, imaging Jo cleaning glasses or returning with a tray and rolling her eyes as she tried not to laugh herself. He wished he was there instead of freezing his ass off in goddamn Michigan.

Ellen returned to the phone with an apology before he could practically see her shrugging, pouring drinks and taking empties all the while. The woman was amazing, that was for sure.

"I don't know what to tell you, honey, that's all I know. It's not like you've got another Gordon on your hands here. She's not bad and she's not cocky. She's smart. Got some tricks up her sleeve that even gave me a bit of a start. Seems like she's out for blood if you ask me."

"Aren't we all?" It was murmured quietly under his breath and Ellen asked what he meant. Dean shook his head, pulling into the parking lot of the motel. He cranked his car into park and sat there, loathe to depart into the cold just yet. "I just said thanks for the info. Let me know if you remember anything else?"

"Sure thing. And, Dean?"

"Yeah."

"You watch out for your brother, you hear? And that girl. She's hardly older than Jo."

"Yeah, all right."

"You take care now. And be careful."

"You too, Ellen. I will."

He heard the phone settle back into its cradle on her end and the line went dead. Dean slid his own phone from his ear and tossed it on the passenger seat beside him. He turned his car off only to sit there, thoughts swirling darkly.

Talking with Ellen had appeased him, but not by much. He knew he was kind of off his game and trusting Gordon in the first place, those weeks ago, had been a huge indication of that. Getting Ellen's perspective had been good, if not exactly helpful. He still didn't know where he stood with Ali and he couldn't exactly put his finger on why.

Was it the fact that she was a chick? He knew plenty of women more than capable at this life and the job and at, well, everything. The respect he had for their gender was unparalleled. He couldn't imagine walking around all day in four inch spikes with perfect hair and perfect makeup while having to deal with assholes and get their work done plus everything at home. Women were amazing. He didn't think it was that.

Was it because Sam liked her? He could admit that was part of it, sure. The kid was his brother after all and he'd always watched out for him and protected him. It made him who he was. Seeing Sam getting all gooey over a girl, much less a girl hunter, just kind of made him unsure. Sam couldn't be easy and go for the waitresses or the bartender, no, he had to go making eyes at the girl they were working with and bring feelings in. Sex was never just sex for him. Sure, he'd look at girls, Dean saw him do it, but he was one of those guys who had to have a connection beyond the physical, the kind of guy who wanted conversation and rainbows. Seeing him and Ali together today had just solidified that for him.

Was it because she was a hunter? He could say that was part of it too. He had a natural disinclination for them now, since Gordon, since he'd been a kid and it had just been him, his dad, and Sam. You worked with your team and that was it. No one else. Not unless you had to. Hunters ran their own gigs and had their own lines to pull, not to mention their own styles and methods. Gordon had proved that. More than Dean cared to admit.

Maybe, at the root of it all, it was because he still remembered that little girl, if vaguely, and only remembered how upset she had been, how she had cried and cried, how her parents had been slaughtered and her siblings taken. Dean remembered how sick he'd felt trying to put himself in her shoes. Just an easy, suburban life, one he could have had, and it was all ripped away, your entire family gone. Just like that. Maybe it was because he remembered his own fear and felt the vestiges of it again just being with her, tickling at his insides, because he remembered that, remembered that case.

Remembered that they hadn't gotten far with it at all.

Dean shook his head, ridding himself of the thoughts, and stepped out into the cold air, turning his collar up against the wind and huddling into his jacket as he walked briskly inside to collect their things, ready for tonight. He wanted just a good old vampire hunt, black and white, after all of the gray that had happened recently. He wanted to get out of here, out of this godforsaken town, out of the cold and back toward where it was somewhat warmer as soon as humanly possible.

He wanted to get away from Ali because she made him remember and he didn't like the memories, not at all. Not where she was concerned—but especially his own involvement in them. How scared he'd been, how weak, how…incompetent.

Yeah, he was really looking forward to doing something he was actually good at, especially something that would take his mind off of all the shit and all the darkness and all the bad, at least for a little while. He wanted to focus on one tiny pinprick before he had to consider, or was forced to consider, the whole big damn picture again.

He collected their knives and their guns and other supplies quickly, throwing them into one of the surplus Army bags they'd had for years. Maybe they'd find a job somewhere South next, where there wasn't snow or ice or any of that sleet crap. What was sleet anyway? Just another word for wet and cold and miserable, as far as he was concerned.

Dean stepped back, surveying the room quickly, making sure all of the weapons and things that could raise some sticky questions were put away or hidden in case a maid or someone came in. He and Sam had learned that the hard way. It was great to have everything spread out or hung up where you could see it, but it didn't make for a speedy cleanup and he was getting a little tired of being considered some Satanic worshipper, especially in light of certain events.

Satisfied, he nodded to himself before he exited back into the freezing day, shuddering even beneath his layers. God, but he hated the cold. He locked the door and walked quickly back to his car. Once the duffle was safely ensconced in the backseat, he grabbed his cell again and quickly dashed a text off to the "S" contact in his phone.

Headed back now. See you in 15.

Figuring it was a good head's up, and a good warning, he cranked Baby into reverse and started heading toward the motel Ali was staying at—something called Snelling's. Weird. Dean got the impression that he wasn't supposed to hurry by any means and sighed, wondering when the tables had turned and if Sam always felt like this when he'd had a lady friend over from time to time.

If he did, no wonder he looked constipated all the time.

Dean pulled in a few minutes later, foot tapping to the beat of the song he was blasting. When he turned his car off, the silence was almost deafening. He grabbed their bag and slung it over their shoulder and then headed inside, after knocking loudly, deep breath taken. He really didn't want to just waltz in. He really didn't want to see his kid brother getting it on with the girl, even if he had wondered a few times in the two days they'd known each other what she looked like beneath all of those layers.

When the door opened, they were both thankfully clothed and only a little mussed. Dean gave Sam a significant look, to which Sam only shrugged, before he strode inside and threw their bag on the bed that was still thankfully made.

"All right, lovebirds. Are you ready to kick some vamp ass or what?"

He turned to the other two, to see Ali smiling almost roguishly, absolutely delighted to be able to do some of that ass kicking. Dean felt the same and returned her smile, turning to his brother with raised brows and wide hands. Sam just nodded.

"Yeah, let's go through everything again."

Dean sighed, crestfallen that Sam didn't share their enthusiasm, but they all sat, they on the bed, Dean in a chair, to talk logistics and plans and details again, making sure they were all nailed down before they headed out for the night. Dean listened all the more intently to Ali and watched her with the same concentration, looking for any hint of nervousness or skittishness. She appeared to be fine. In fact, she seemed to be about as eager for the hunt as Dean was.

It was kind of nice having that.


	7. House Of The Rising Son

Night had finally fallen.

They went to the bar somewhat early, not wanting to miss their prey. Ali was still disgruntled to be relegated to a lesser role but she understood the need for it. Unfortunately. She sat in the backseat of the brothers' car as Dean pulled into a parking spot and cut the engine, her knife and own bag on the empty seat beside her.

"You ready?" Dean asked quietly.

Sam nodded and Ali murmured a yes.

They climbed out from the car, doors slamming loudly in the icy air. The back of the building in front of them was blank, the dumpster looming dark and large to their side. Sam and Dean rounded to the back of the car so she followed, one hand pushed deep into her pocket, the other wrapped around the hard leather sheath of her knife, comforted by the weight and the feel of it. Winter—sometimes she hated it, especially when she was this far north. It just had a different feel to it and it was a miserable one. Dean popped the trunk and pulled up a fake bottom. Ali whistled lowly, impressed. They had a veritable armory of weapons. There were guns and knives and stakes—there was even a pair of brass knuckles. It appeared to be in disarray, but she presumed Dean had his own system of organization because he plucked up long knives for his brother and himself without any trouble. He passed one to Sam cursorily before he closed the trunk and turned to face them both.

His face was hard, dangerous, but Ali saw a gleam there deep in eyes that looked black in the darkness. There existed a shine of excitement there and she got it, she understood it. She looked forward to the hunt too. She looked forward to the kill, to the extermination of something evil that had taken innocent lives. It was a low, primitive throb in the blood. It validated everything. For a moment, just a moment, she could pretend the thing she had just killed had been the thing that had taken her family from her. And that was a good thing, a very good thing, to feel.

So, yeah, she got it. And she felt it too, obviously.

Dean's breath puffed out in a white cloud, the heat against the cold. He gripped the sheath of his own knife tightly.

"So just one more time. I know we've gone over it a shit ton but we may as well again." He cleared his throat. "Sam and I are going to go in, scope out the place. We're gonna find the bloodsucker, wait until he picks up a victim, and then tail him. Ali—"

"I'm going to be the poor, pathetic girl who can't fight that waits by the back door as the men do what I can't."

She sensed, rather than saw, Dean roll his eyes. Sam turned to her, obviously intent on defending her and saying she wasn't useless. Ali touched his arm lightly, shaking her head.

"It's fine. It was a joke. So to tell me when you're trailing him—"

"I'll tell you and tell you where we're at and what direction we're headed in," Sam answered.

Ali smiled and he returned it. A kiss in that moment would have been inappropriate, especially in front of Dean, she knew they were both aware of it, but it would have been nice. Warm. She would have liked feeling a little less like a Michigan icicle.

"All right, we good? Can I break the lovebirds up now?"

Ali rolled her eyes at Dean then, tempted to backhand him in the stomach for his smart mouth. It would have been a good laugh, winding the macho man who had to make a joke out of everything.

"Yeah, we're fine. Go and find the leech. And make sure you tell me where you're going." She speared them both with a look, threatening physical harm if they didn't.

Sam nodded and Dean muttered a sullen, "Yeah, yeah" before he started to walk away. Sam smiled a sweet goodbye at her before he followed. Ali watched until they disappeared around the corner to the front of the bar, their knives magically gone.

She moved and waited by the back door, feet stomping in the crust of snow more soot-colored than white any more. She gripped the handle of her knife and quickly strapped the sheath to her thigh, not caring about public appearances in this moment of time. It was more a machete than a knife, per se, and that was good for the job she was trying to accomplish, but it made it somewhat more cumbersome when she was trying to blend in and look more normal. So she chose not to.

After an hour, pissed and wondering if she was more snowman than person, she decided to sit in the Winchesters' car with a decisive, "Fuck this."

The car had been left unlocked so she could get into her bag if she needed to. She slid behind the steering wheel, feet far from the pedals. It made her realize once again how small she was compared to the both of them, not just Sam. She sighed, setting her machete on the passenger seat beside her within arm's reach.

It was so much warmer inside. Ali crossed her arms over her chest, watching the door to the bar, prepared for any movement beyond, ready for her phone to buzz to let her know that the vampire was being tracked.

Time passed, ticking on slowly, agonizingly. This was when she hated stakeouts—when time passed on, trickling on, when the target took entirely too long to show up and make a move. It took so long that she became numb, even seated in the car, frozen solid—and then her phone buzzed with a notification. Ali dragged it from her pocket, opening up the text from Sam.

Headed south on Cloud. Moving slow.

She grabbed up her knife and fairly flew from the car, making sure to hit the locks because Dean had seemed apoplectic at the thought of her not doing so. She jogged to the front of the front of the building, knife hidden again as she looked up where Cloud was on her phone. She headed south down it, like Sam had said, fighting to stay at a walk. She was straining against her own impatience, straining against the want to break into a run and join the brothers so they could hunt, and kill, the fang together. But there was imminent threat, not yet. Sam had said they were going slow. She'd catch up.

Ali found Sam and Dean after ten minutes, going as slow as Sam had said. About fifty feet ahead of them, she saw the vampire—young, good-looking, dark-haired—with his arm thrown negligently around the shoulders of a pretty blonde who seemed doe-eyed and amazed at life as whole. Young and naive; the perfect bait. He nuzzled into her neck and she laughed and Ali bristled.

"Hey." She stopped alongside the two men, who spared her brief glances. "Can't this thing just crawl back into its nest so we can chop its head off now?"

"I wish," Sam grumbled, clearly frustrated. "They're just walking around and kissing like some teenagers."

"Did you lock my car?" Dean stared at her intensely. "I swear to God if you didn't lock my car—"

"You can get your panties out of the twist they're in, Nancy. Your car is fine."

"I just wanna make sure my baby is okay. You never know about people these days."

"I'm sorry—your baby?" Ali nearly stopped, a smile of mischievous proportions spreading wide across her face. This was just too good, entirely too good. "Do you seriously call your car 'baby?'"

"So?" Dean muttered defensively. "There's nothing wrong with that."

"No, not at all. Do you call your penis 'baby' too?"

He opened his mouth hotly to respond but Sam jabbed him hard in the ribs and pointed surreptitiously ahead of them, chin jerking.

"Hey. Look."

The vampire and the girl had turned away from the crowd of people going to eat and drink for the night. The three of them slid into the shadows to follow, pressing close to the grimy brick as they stalked their target. There was no more talking. There was just silence and the sound of their hearts beating in their throats. Ali inhaled deeply, calmly, although a tingle of anticipation had pervaded her fingers. She reached for her knife, sliding it gingerly from her waistband where she'd hidden it, the holder still tight about her thigh. She held the metal lowly in front of her, gripped tight.

The vampire and his intended victim were oblivious to the hunters tracing their footsteps. They laughed and talked, his hand tight about her waist now they were out of the public eye. She beamed up at him, unaware that she was looking into the eyes of the creature who wanted to turn her into one of the undead like him. And, judging by his body count, he'd probably fail in the attempt. Again.

It gave Ali a chill that had nothing to do with the frigid cold. So many supernatural beings—werewolves, shifters, vampires—were able to walk among the masses and pretend they were mostly human too. How did you know your waitress didn't turn into a howling thing because of the phase of the moon? How did you know the guy at the gas station didn't just look like a middle-aged Asian man for the day?

It gave her all the more motivation to do her job and do it well.

The couple headed to a ramshackle apartment building with a spiderweb of fire escapes and a few jewel-bright windows glowing golden in the night. Dean, Sam, and Ali all faded back automatically. It was good that they had. The bloodsucker didn't head for the apartments but to a dark house Ali hadn't even seen two lots down. She traded a look with the brothers before they followed, stepping lightly, merely shadows that had detached from the walls of they alley beyond.

The vampire unlocked the door to the house, he and the girl exchanging another lip lock before they disappeared inside. It made Ali's stomach churn. She and Sam and Dean quickly and non-verbally conferred. Dean rounded to the back of the house while she and Sam stayed in the front. He slowly eased the door open and they slid inside, trying their absolute hardest to be as quiet and invisible as possible.

The living room inside was dark, lit only by the dim light of the streetlights beyond that tried to break past the curtains and the blankets that covered the windows. It was practically empty, filled only with a couch and several armchairs as well as a battered coffee table, littered with a refuse of beer bottles and plastic cups. Ali also thought there was a white powder on one corner, clearly the remains of the line that used to be there. The furniture was clearly old, worn saggy and threadbare through years of use and abuse.

There was no one there.

Knives in hand, cruel and sharp, they paced slowly to the kitchen, each step careful. Ali was praying constantly over and over again that no creak or mistake would alert their target to their presence. They stopped in the opening to a kitchen just as well-used and unkempt as the room beyond. It was just as empty—except for the mountains of dishes that needed cleaned.

A hand touched her shoulder, a voice speaking lower in ear ear. "Hey, hey, it's just me."

Ali whirled in spite of that, slashing with her knife, deep in the bone extinct and a preservation for her life kicking in viciously. Dean ducked, hardly surprised. He rose almost as fast, grabbing her wrist to keep her from hacking his head off.

"Hey! Hey!" he hissed. "It's me. It's Dean."

Ali nodded, free hand rising in the universal gesture for surrender. Dean watched her for a moment until he was satisfied she had truly relented and then he let her go. His attention turned to Sam, head shaking—he hadn't found anything. Together, the brothers glanced toward the door that led to the basement.

Dean threw it open and, as if in reaction, a blood-curdling scream rose from the pitch-black depths below. Ali seized up, her shoulders going instantly rigid with stress. Screaming was never good. Never, ever good. His face grim and severe, Dean looked at her and Sam, one brow quirked, his head jerking in the direction of the stairs. He made his way down first, Sam nudging Ali to follow before he brought up the rear. The only light, faint though it was, came from the streetlights glowing through the kitchen behind them. She could only just see the outline of Dean's jacketed shoulders in front of her and that was about it.

When they stepped onto the floor, they could see or hear no one. There was no one to see or hear. The basement was almost completely empty except for fixtures of the house. A sliver of light shone from beneath a closed door across the room. The three of them advanced forward without a word. Ali clenched her wooden handle tight, knowing her heartbeat had picked up from anticipation, no matter how she tried to calm it. She wanted to get this job done, she wanted to cut this bastard's head off and call it a day.

They were feet from the door when it flew open and they froze in the sudden light, shocked, before they all dashed to the sides, attempting to hide behind the support pillars present in the basement.

They may as well have not even tried.

Ali thought there had been just the one vamp, who had been killing his potential mates when he tried to turn them. She couldn't have been more wrong. They had been wrong. All of them. They had stumbled their way into a nest…and not even known it.

A curly-haired female came dashing after her, mouth fill of the terrible fangs that were a trademark of her kind. She snarled and Ali slashed with the knife she had hidden behind her back. It glinted cruelly from the light of the room beyond. They danced in a way, Ali dodging a backhand that would have sent her spinning before she came up, hacking in a vicious upswing. She felt a moment of resistance and the spray of warm blood against her face and torso. The body crumpled at her feet, headless.

Ali turned in time to see Dean finish a light-haired male and Sam fighting a black-skinned female. She was intent on going to help Sam, even though she knew he was more than capable, but he finished his own vampire in the next moment and there were three headless corpses laying on the basement floor.

The brothers nodded at each other with pride but the prickling feeling of gooseflesh still hadn't left her skin. She looked at the bodies on the floor and then the heads that laid scattered. She was hardly bothered by the grotesque sight before her. No, it was something else that was disconcerting. She squinted at the head of the male Dean had dispatched and it clicked.

"This isn't him." She looked a Sam and Dean, who were looking at her like she was insane. "This isn't the leech we tracked here. He had brown hair; this guy's blonde."

"Fuck." Dean swore and then they all turned to look at the light beyond.

"How many do you think?" Sam murmured, raising a knife stained red.

"No idea."

Dean motioned them forward and they all advanced, slowly, with no idea of what laid beyond, especially since they had just been surprised so catastrophically just moments ago. There could just be the one, original vampire or there could be a handful, just waiting. Again, Dean motioned, waving Sam to the left and Ali to the right. They both nodded, understanding, before they burst through the door and into the light.

Two men and a woman hung from chains attached to the rafters of the half-finished room. Ali only saw blood, some fresh and some old, before she saw the pretty girl on what appeared to be a medical examining table, her neck awash with red. There were also two other people, both of them male, one of those the vampire they had tracked here. The other was tall, burly, and bull-chested, three hundred pounds and all of it muscle. Ali felt her stomach drop at her sight, feeling all the more small and outweighed. The three of them moved forward, however, machetes raised threateningly.

"You may as well give up." Dean's voice was harsh, commanding. "You're not getting out of here alive, you sons of bitches, so it's just easier to to give up."

The vampire they had tracked laughed sardonically, snarling, showing off teeth that were still human-looking. "Yes, we're going to surrender when you just slaughtered the rest of our family."

"Yeah, okay, family." Dean motioned with his knife, the edge glinting. "Whatever you wanna say. Let's just cut to the chase here, okay? You're going to die, so let's get on with it."

"Gladly." The vampire smiled then, revealing a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth. Ali sank into a crouch as the thing growled and launched itself at Dean.

The two of them hit with a clap and went tumbling, yelling and cursing at one another. Ali and Sam didn't have time to watch because the monster of a monster came after them, mouth as full of the horrible as his friend.

"Watch out!" Sam pushed her to the side and jumped forward, swinging at the huge vampire in front of him.

The thing yelled at him as Ali stumbled to the side, swearing. The vampire swung out at Sam, who ducked, slashing and hacking. Ali saw Dean from the corner of her eye go rolling and spring to his feet, shouting, "You bastard!" and went springing back into the fray.

Ali didn't have the chance to watch more as Sam went flying beside her, tumbling to the hard stone, and she was staring a bull of a vampire right in the eye, his teeth extended and brutal hunger in his beady little eyes.

The next thing she knew, she hit a wall and the room went spinning.

Her head and body throbbed, instantly, and for a moment she didn't know up from down. Movement was occurring before her but she couldn't tell what was what. Or who was what. Everything just kept spinning and spinning. Through the ringing in her ears, she heard her name called and tried to focus on it to pull herself out from the blackness threatening to envelop her. She couldn't pass out, not now, not here, not when she was supposed to be fighting.

She felt a hand around her throat and then she was pressed against the wall, gasping, spluttering, her feet kicking at thin air. She tried to focus, tried to pull herself back to full consciousness, and saw a mouth full of teeth and black eyes before her, snarling. For a moment, she felt that clutch in her belly, the one where she prepared herself to the imminent threat of death. She heard a thick thunk and felt warm wet on her face before the hold on her neck went limp.

Ali fell, coughing, one hand clutched to her throat as she breathed in through a pipe that had previously been closed down to the size of a straw. She gasped, looking up to see Dean there, as covered in blood as she felt, his knife dripping with it. He was smirking, absolutely overjoyed about something.

"Looks like I had to save your ass, princess. You sure you can keep up with the big boys?"

She regained her feet, glaring at him, rubbing her neck. She could still feel the leech's fingers wrapped around her skin. "Yeah, well, we needed something to distract thing thing, right?" she croaked.

Dean just laughed, clearly unbelieving. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say."

"What about…the girls?"

"Sam took care of them already." His face folded down, tight.

She understood. God, she understood. The girls had to be killed, even if they had just been turned, even if they had been humans but hours before. It was one of the worst things about the job.

Ali nodded, bending down to scoop up her knife. She held it, feeling better with it in hand, even if it hadn't done much good when she'd been up against a vampire who, as a man, still would have had an advantage on her because of the extra two hundred pounds he weighed. That wasn't exactly fair.

"Looks like we managed to win this one, then. Somehow."

"Yeah, somehow." She watched as he glanced around the room, taking in the bodies they had created. There was a flicker of regret before it was gone and he turned as Sam came back into the room. "You good?"

"Yeah." Sam looked at her and Ali nodded, reassuring him of her own well-being. He turned to his brother, smudges of red on his hands and face, evidence of blood he had tried to remove. "We're good."

Dean nodded, checking the room out one more time, before he nodded infinitesimally. "All right. Let's clean this all up and get outta here."

He moved out into the open basement beyond and Ali came after, following into step beside Sam, feeling her every ache and sore and bruise. There'd be time to nurse them later, with a big bottle of red at hand. Celebration for a job finished, if not exactly well-done.

And then she'd be on her way, doing her own thing. And the Winchesters could do the same. Cut and dried. No strings. That was all there was to it.


	8. Too Daze Gone

Celebration. Or was it forgetting? Was it trying to forget the image of the headless bodies and the feeling of death pressing close about her? She didn't know. She didn't care. Not at this point. She had long ago passed the point of caring.

They had cleaned up and gotten rid of the bodies to go back to the brothers' hotel room. Ali could have gone back to her own, and should have, but it had seemed such an effort and one she wasn't willing to make.

They showered and changed, Ali wearing the change of clothes she had stowed in her bag. It wasn't exactly considered kosher to walk through busy streets completely blood-drenched, whether it was your own or someone else's. Freshly scrubbed and free of the vestiges from their night, they ordered pizza in and fairly inhaled it all, along with the beer that Dean pulled out.

And then more and more beer.

Ali was past buzzed and well into drunk. She knew that, she was aware. She just didn't care. They had done their job—gone far and above it, actually, even though they hadn't meant to. They had been dragged into and she was kicking herself for not investigating further, for not observing more, not tracking the damn male back to his nest before. But they had done what they had set out to do and that was what mattered. And maybe she was a little spooked. Maybe she felt like she had narrowly escaped meeting her Maker. Maybe that was why she was in such a state. It didn't really matter.

The three of them talked and laughed and watched trashy late night TV. The pizza disappeared, not even crusts remaining, and Sam, the most sober in their little group, made another run to the liquor store after Ali begged and Dean cajoled. Sam went to bed soon after, with a look tossed Ali's way. She just waved him off and smiled, wishing him a goodnight. She and Dean continued on until the TV programs went from trashy to terrible and still Sam slept on, aided by what he had drank and a long habit of falling asleep where and when he needed to.

Finally, when she felt like she was about to fall over from tiredness herself, Ali turned to Dean.

"I need to go back to my own room, I think. 'S time for bed."

Dean, sitting on the edge of his own bed, spread his arms wide, a beer bottle dangling from his fingertips. "Awww, come on, Ali, you're finally loosening up here."

She shook her head and then stopped when the room started spinning. "No, no. I need to go back to my own place. I want to. Can you take me?"

He sighed and took a swallow of his drink. "Yeah, sure. I'll walk you."

"It's a long walk," she pointed out. "Maybe I should…leave in the morning."

"Nah, it's okay." Dean climbed to his feet and finished his beer with one long pull. "I'll take ya. A walk will do me good."

"If you say so…"

Ali pulled on a dark sweater over her shirt and then shrugged into the utility jacket she had had squirreled away in her bag, preparing to go out in the bitter cold again. God help her. She turned to see Dean pulling on his own before she slung her bag over her shoulder, focusing on her feet and the room around her. She wasn't [i]that[/i] drunk.

"Let's go, hot stuff."

He scoffed behind her but she stepped outside, into a swirl of snowflakes and the biting cold. Ali immediately shoved her fingers deep into her pockets, huddling into her jacket, glad for the sweater she was wearing. Snow was pretty but she certainly wasn't looking forward to the long walk ahead. She was regretting drinking so much now, that was for sure.

The door snicked behind her and he followed as they set off, shrugging into their coats to keep a little warmer. Ali had to lengthen her stride to keep up with Dean—even drunk enough to not be able to drive, he was still fast and always long-legged. They walked in silence, with the snow streaming around them, the drinks they had had one of the only things only keeping them warm.

She finally slanted a look his way after long minutes had passed. He stood tall and silent, wearing his dark jacket with the collar up around the back, his hands in his own pockets. He was handsome in a dangerous way, all stubble and hair slightly styled and dark eyes. More menacing than Sam, who was sweet and kind-hearted and good. Why did that make her belly rumble and twist?

"You didn't have ta walk me home," she murmured.

"Yeah, I did," he returned. "Like you said, it's long and, I'm sorry, but you're pretty hot and I'm not letting some creeper come up to you."

"I can handle myself."

"Yeah. Well." He shrugged.

Ali snorted lightly, head tossing as she stared straight ahead of herself. That rumble and twist was due to anger now. Why did he always act like she was some damsel in distress? She could take care of herself. Hadn't she proved that tonight? She could take on vampires and much, much worse. She could surely dispatch any men with less than kind thoughts directed her way.

"I'm not trying to be rude here." She peered at him from the corner of her eye. He was looking at her, his face open and frank. "I'm not saying you can't do some damage cuz you can. Obviously. But other people don't know that and I don't want to risk you getting hurt because some slimeball thinks he has a chance."

Ali stopped and actually turned to look at him, eyebrows high and mouth agape. Dean halted as well and slowly swiveled to look at her, hands shoved into the pockets of his scarred leather jacket. He just looked at her questioningly. She laughed slightly, a shock of sound, her head shaking.

"Are you kidding me?"

"No? Why would I be?" He stepped closer, looming over her, peering at her in genuine confusion.

"Because!" Ali laughed again, arms spreading wide before they flopped heavily to her sides. That hadn't been the best move. She felt slightly dizzy now. "You've honestly been an ass and now here you are playing the—playing the white knight?"

"I haven't been an ass," he muttered, brows drawn down low over his dark eyes.

"Really?" Ali just watched him and he finally sighed, eyes rolling, a shoulder jerking in acknowledgment.

"All right, okay. I have been an ass. I know. It's just because—"

"You think a woman can't get the job done."

"No, it's because I don't want you getting hurt."

They stood on the sidewalk, the snow slowly piling up around them, the glare from a streetlight harsh and orange. It painted his face in sharp contrast, all shadows and cheekbones and dark, dark eyes. She saw a vulnerability there she never would have expected, especially as he stepped forward, gaze hooking her own magnetically.

"I don't want you getting hurt, Ali. I get it, I do, believe me. The revenge thing? It's a bitch and I get it. But me and my family? We've lost a lot. Sam and I…we have to see this out. You don't have to. Get out now, while you still can."

"What?" She repeated it dumbly because having a frank, actually civil conversation with Dean was doing a number on her head and it just wasn't making sense. If he got it he wouldn't be asking this. If he really understood, he would know she could never even consider it.

"Get out. Go live a normal life. You deserve one. You're gorgeous, you're funny, you're smart. Get out, go to school. Do something other than this. Anything other than this."

"Dean." Her voice shook but she didn't care, couldn't care, because there were tears welling in her eyes and she hated herself for it but she blamed the massive amounts of alcohol they had consumed. "I can't do that. You [i]know[/i] I can't do that. You and Sam—"

"Sam and me, we're different. We [i]have[/i] to do this. We were [i]raised[/i] to do this, ever since Sam was a baby. You've got a chance, Ali. You have to take it. Please."

"Why?" It was but a whisper as she looked up at him, tears streaking, unfelt, down her face.

"Because…You're too good to die in this business. You know how it goes—hunters don't get out alive. And dead, it's usually torn, shredded, and eaten. Don't let it happen to you."

"I—what? I'm confused. I—"

His mouth was on hers the next second, the kiss soft and slow. His hand came to her cheek, rough and warm, tangling in her hair. She felt the snowflakes on her skin and the cold sensation of them melting, mixing with the tears on her face, as her arms came around his neck and her body aligned with his, her heels lifted off the ground as she stood on tiptoe.

The kiss was warm, soft, with the slight taste of the alcohol they had both consumed. The slide of tongues was warm and solid. Familiar, without any prerequisite knowledge besides the same dance done before with other partners. She felt his fingers combing through her hair, brushing it back from her face before their mouths met once and then twice and he pulled away.

"Oh."

They both laughed then and he kissed her again, deep and slow, both his hands cupping her face like she was precious, like he never wanted her to leave. It was an experience she was wholly unused to. She was used to the fast ride, to the lust and the hunger. This was different. Entirely different.

When he stepped back, eyes soft on her face, Ali caught herself smiling at him, slightly giddy from the drinks and from the contact. Her entire world had flipped upside down in the last five minutes—and yet it was good, wasn't it? Dean didn't hate her…he wanted her safe, which was a strange concept but, God help her, did it really matter at this point in time?

"We should get going before we get snowed in," she murmured.

Dean nodded and sidled back all the more. Ali looked at him for a moment before she turned and they started walking again, in step, close by each other's side, the heat from their bodies rising and mingling. Or was she warm from the kiss? Or the alcohol?

Ali's thoughts swirled, unsubstantial, nothing more than fleeting sparks of ideas that rose and then fell. Smoke. Dissipated by wind. She was drunk and she knew it. She was walking very, very unstable ground and she knew it. She was walking back to her motel room with Dean Winchester and they were going to sleep together. She knew it.

And maybe it was her inebriation, maybe it was because she was riding high on the fact that she was alive and very well could have died that night, but she couldn't care about the consequences or the results. Not when she was walking in the snow and she had just been kissed like she mattered and that was a feeling she had never had before.

Sometimes you just had to live and let live.


	9. Topsy Turvy

The snow was falling heavier now, big sheets of it full of fat flakes that melted as soon as they hit the skin. It was cold, very cold, but Dean couldn't care when he felt warm and loose. There was a fire in his belly that seemed to spread to the very tips of his fingers. He didn't know if it was because he was drunk still or because he had just kissed a very pretty girl, but it was regardless a good feeling.

They walked to her motel, chatting idly about how crap late night TV was and how ridiculous late night hosts were. He liked Conan but she couldn't stand him, preferring Jimmy Fallon. It sparked an argument that went on for long minutes, until he saw the sign to Snelling's and knew they had reached their destination.

She looked gorgeous in the snow. He watched as flakes would catch on her hair, hanging icy for a moment before they melted, making dew drops in the long blonde strands of it. She looked snug in her modified winter wear—a hunter couldn't exactly wear a down parka if they wanted to stay alive—and dangerous, somewhat imposing. She wasn't wearing a dress or anything, but she definitely looked like the woman she was, tall with undeniable curves, even beneath her layers. It made his palms itch. She was intriguing, Ali was, and while he still wasn't sure he could entirely trust her, he still meant what he had told her earlier.

This just wasn't the life she should be leading. She shouldn't have been almost killed by a vampire tonight. She shouldn't have been covered in blood for her efforts. He was by no means sexist—women could do the job just as well, if not better in some areas—but he didn't want this for her. He didn't want her to come to the inevitable bloody end. She could have so much better. He and Sam were in this and there was no getting out. Their mom had been killed, starting them on this whole track, and their dad had been too now. There was no going back. There was no turning away—not when your family's lives hung in the balance. And he got it, he did. She wanted to avenge her own family too. He knew how it felt to need that, want that, to have that be the only thing that made your life make sense.

But she wasn't in this like they were. She could get out.

He and Sam were on the trail of the bastard that had taken their parents from them. They had seen it. They had almost killed it. They could have, too, but he had begged Sam not to, begged through the blood in his mouth, his life slowly ticking away with each beat of his beleaguered heart. Did he regret it? Absolutely. More than he could even begin to explain. Would he change it? Never. He had been trying to protect his father, the man he had looked up to his whole life. He had been trying to keep his family whole. But Ali… Her family was already gone and had been for over ten years. The trail was cold. His father hadn't been able to catch a whiff of the thing and John Winchester was irrefutably one of the best in the business. He wasn't doubting her tenacity or perseverance—he knew the fervor of the fire that drove her—but the odds were stacked against her.

So why not get out? Why not try to live a normal life? He could see her in a house with a smiling husband and some rugrats. Happy, normal. Driving to work in her pretty little car. Maybe a teacher or a secretary. Hell, maybe the head of a multimillion dollar company or a baker or something. Anything other than a transient, a hustler, a hunter.

The sign for her stupid little motel—seriously? Snelling's?—rose up and she turned to him, smiling gorgeously. Dean was a sucker for smiles, he'd admit it. When a woman hit him with a good one, he was just gone, all warm and slightly fuzzy. There were few things sexier than a really killer smile and Ali's? Well, Ali's was one of the best.

"Ready to get out of the cold for at least a minute, hot stuff? I know you're manly and all but I'm sure you'd like to thaw out a bit."

"Yeah, yeah. Fine." He passed it off brusquely, even as he grinned to one side. He liked the little verbal spars they had. He liked that she was mouthy and loud and came on all strong. He liked that about her. A lot more than he might care to admit.

They ascended the stairs to the second level and she let them into her room, flicking the lights on before the door closed, effectively shutting out the cold and the snow beyond. Dean walked into the room, checking it out none too subtly. It was a nice place, even homey in an older, 1970s kind of way. Or maybe he thought it was homey because places with decor like this—all old paintings and worn sheets—had been his home growing up.

Not caring to think about that much more, he turned to where she still stood by the door and nodded discreetly.

"It ain't half bad, I guess."

"Thanks." Ali laughed lightly and followed him deeper into the room, shedding her brown coat on the chair beside the large, single bed in the room.

Dean wasn't used to those. For most of his life, he'd lived in a crappy motel room with his dad and his brother, he and Sam crammed into one bed together, Dad in the other. For most of his life, he had fallen asleep to the sound of the two most important people in his life breathing in his ear. When he, rarely, had been on a hunt on his own, having the single bed in the room had been strange in an entirely unpleasant way. It felt too small, too cramped, and if he hadn't worn himself out with research or killing some dick of a creature, he'd go to a bar and meet a girl and bring her back, if only so he could have someone breathing there beside him when he finally could sleep at night.

He watched Ali fold her coat over the back of the chair, watched the way the gray sweater she wore clung to her figure, revealing those curves. He liked that she wasn't all skin and bone, he liked that she had some meat to her. Yeah, she might have been thin and pretty, but she was strong, he knew that, and it made his throat go slightly tight. There was an element of the dangerous here and he liked that, he appreciated that. More than he might care to admit. He had the hots for her and he knew where this was headed…

But she and Sam had also tangoed underneath the sheets and he didn't know how Sam would take him sleeping with Ali too.

As far as Dean was concerned, sex was sex and it didn't really bother him that Ali had already been with his brother. If anything it was…kind of hot? What he was worried about was how Sammy would take it. The two of them had never exactly shared a girl considering their age difference and different tastes. Obviously, Ali had some overlap. And Sam had…emotions, to say the least. He couldn't ever just think of it as one night, a chance to get away and stop thinking for a while. No, never that. He couldn't just blow off steam and have a good time and move on to the next town. No, it had to all mean something and that was all well and good at times but sometimes…most times…it was good to just have a little fun.

So why shouldn't he?

They were going to roll out soon anyhow, onto the next city, the next case, the next monster, the next hunt. Why not have a little fun? Ali understood, he knew that. Why else would she have kissed him? She got it. She understood their own mortality—for fuck's sake, she'd about died that night and would have if he hadn't saved her ass. So why not? Why not have some fun? They'd blow this joint tomorrow and no one would be the wiser.

So, he came up behind her, hands sliding over her hips, his mouth nuzzling into her ear. And he knew she was okay with it, that she understood it was the drinking and the near death and the fun that drove him because she leaned back into him, pliant. Willing.

Dean tightened his hold on her, mouth finding hers from behind. Lips met, tongues probed, and he tasted the alcohol there again before she turned in his hold, hands coming up to his face, small but hardly delicate. He held her closer, arms wrapping about her, struck as always by just how small women were and how he never realized just how tall he really was until he was alone and away from Sam the ginormous.

She pushed his coat from his shoulders as they stumbled backward. Ali was in control now and he didn't mind it, he didn't mind it one bit. It was a heady feeling, giving up the power he so tightly held onto. He could be somewhat vulnerable here, he could let his guard down. He could just be so maybe he liked that feeling just as much as the sex because it was a whole other kind of release.

His legs hit the bed and then his back and she stood watching him, grinning like a lioness who had just felled her prey. It made goosebumps erupt into being on his skin, and that was before she slowly slunk closer, knees pressing into the bed on either side of his hips as she straddled him. His hands ran up beneath her sweater, palms catching slightly on the shirt she wore beneath. She smiled, long and slow, before her sweater was on the floor and she was wearing a thin, long-sleeved black shirt that made the curve of her breasts and the beginning of her hips all the more apparent. He sighed through his teeth, feeling the warmth of her skin beneath the thin cotton.

Ali bent low, lips skittering over his skin, making his heart pump slightly faster. Not in control here, not here, giving it all up. Giving, giving, giving. It was about her, it was always about the woman, because for however long they were together he could forget everything else and that was what he wanted, needed, craved so why not glorify her? Why not her adore her with faculties of lips and hands and every part of him he could give?

Mouths caught, held, as his hands flexed on her hips, hard, before he remembered himself and loosened his hold. He was aching, for her, for this, for everything. He wanted it, God, did he want it. Her.

But…

Unbidden, he remembered Ali and his brother together outside the diner, laughing in the cold, cozy and comfy as any normal couple. He remembered how happy Sam had been, how he hadn't really gotten out and about with girls since his girlfriend had been burned to a crisp on the ceiling, just like their mom had been. He remembered how Sam had smiled and laughed and he literally felt the wind go out of his sails.

Dean's hands fell from her, hitting the bed with a flop. He turned, looking away from Ali, hating himself for this, loathing himself, but knowing it would be worse, much worse, if he didn't. He looked out for his little brother, he protected him. Even if he was protecting Sam from himself, the last person he should have to.

"I can't do this," he whispered, not looking at her, unable to look at her. He still wanted to run his hands over her lovely, soft skin. He still wanted to bury himself in her and lose himself, at least for a while. He wanted to make the darkness his home and never have to see the light, at least for this night.

"Wha—What?"

Dean turned to look at her then, to see her face flushed and her blonde hair awry. She was looking at him with such confusion that he reached up, thumb brushing across her cheek, the smile he returned crooked.

"I can't do this. I can't do this to Sam."

"Sam?" She leaned back, frowning, and he noticed that the neck of her shirt was awry, revealing the curve of her shoulder and the protrusion of her collarbone. He had to lick his lips and remind himself he was saying no. And why.

"Yeah…" Dean laughed softly and then moved so he was sitting upright. Less dangerous. Less temptation. Ali followed but she didn't fix her shirt—she either didn't notice or she didn't care—and he wish he could tell her to because it was so damn distracting. "The kid's my brother, you know? And I don't wanna hurt him."

"Hurt him? How is this going to hurt him?" She frowned again and was still beautiful for it. God help him.

"Because…Sammy doesn't exactly see sex as just sex. Well, he does but it's different for him. It means more. You know? And I don't want to hurt him because of something I think is nice but…at the end of the day…"

"Doesn't mean much," she finished flatly.

"Well…yeah."

Dean rubbed the back of his head, watching her somewhat apprehensively. He knew just from being around her the last few days that the girl could pack a whallop. She was watching him with narrowed eyes, the hazel of them seeming to be glowing with her anger. Yeah, he'd been right to feel uncomfortable about this, especially because she was looking at him like she wanted to skin him right then and there.

She stood suddenly, tall, slim, heat brought to her cheeks for an entirely different reason now. She looked tousled and irate and about ready to kick his ass, even with her shirt pulled all askew. Even when he could still feel her lips on his own and on his skin.

"Get out," she hissed. "Get out now before I grab my fucking gun and shoot you, you ass."

"Okay." He stood, hands extended slightly in surrender. "I'm just—"

"I know what you're doing and I want nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with either of you. Now get out. Now!"

Dean nodded, not exactly wanting to argue. He scooped up his coat hastily and threw it on, peeking over his shoulder to see her standing there, fuming, arms crossed over her chest, obviously making sure he was doing as he was told.

"It's not that I don't want to—" he decided to add before a pillow went whirling past his head.

"Get out before I hit you with something harder," she snarled.

"All right, all right, I'm going, I'm going. No need to get your panties in a twist."

Her heard her muffled scream of rage before he was out the door, slamming it behind him, checking the landing beyond for any passerby. Clear. Thank God. No one wanted to get caught getting thrown out from some chick's place. Dean pulled the collar of his coat up against his neck to ward off the cold and descended the stairs to walk back to his own motel.

Ali may have been mad, pissed as a cat dropped in a tub of water even, but he felt like he had made the best move here. He may have wanted and wanted her bad but, at the end of the day, Sam was his brother, the only family he had left, and he wasn't going to fuck that up. Not for anyone, no matter how great a night they might have had together.

Still, as he hit the sidewalk, he glanced back at the motel, at the room where the light was now on. He sighed, head shaking as he continued on.

"Goodbye, Ali Russell. See ya around."


	10. Wanted Dead Or Alive

Ali packed her bags, still fuming. She had gone to sleep pissed and was still upset about it, fire in her blood that prickled beneath her skin, making her irritated at everything. Water faucet that dripped consistently in her crappy motel room? She almost tore it from the sink. Slipped on ice and spilled her coffee? She almost screamed. Heater didn't work fast enough in her car and some of the ice wouldn't scrape off? She about scrapped the entire thing.

She just wanted to move on to the next town and the next job and forget about this all. She wanted to forget about the damn Winchesters and her blast from the past and everything that had happened in fucking cold ass Minnesota. She wanted to get somewhere warm and far away. California. New Mexico. She'd find some jobs on the other side of the continent, as far from Sam and especially Dean as she could possibly get. Those jerks. Those complete dicks.

Well, not Sam. But Dean. Her fingers clamped tighter on the wheel, her teeth grit. Just thinking about him again and the night before made the edges of her vision go red. She could not believe what had happened. And she should have. She honestly should have. Dean had been a dick before, hadn't he? Nothing had changed. So they had gotten drunk and talked. So they had kissed. So she thought they were going to sleep together. There had been every indication. He had made it clear what was going to happen.

And then he had stopped. Just stopped.

And she got it. She did. She understood that he wanted to protect his brother—but he never should have done anything in the first place. She liked Sam. He was a sweet guy. He was the kind of guy that girls dreamed about meeting and building a life with…except that was never going to happen in her case. Or his, as far as she could see. They were both tied to their separate paths and there was no changing it. They had no white picket fences and rugrats in their future and she felt like Sam thought there was. She got the impression that he thought after he and Dean took out the demon that had killed their mom that he was going to go back to the life he had had before.

She had no such disillusions.

Ali knew this was going to be her life until she reached the end of it and she knew she was probably going to die trying to take some creature of the supernatural out. She had accepted it long, long ago. She had spent every waking second of the last several years of her life preparing and training and carrying out what she did. She had spent every waking second trying to kill the thing that had taken her parents from her and ripped her family apart. There was no turning back. It was plain and simple. She was a killer and that was not going to change. She didn't think she could ever fit into the normal world again, could never fit into a job that didn't necessitate constant travel and bad food and learning how to get bloodstains out of fabric. It just wasn't going to happen. She knew Dean understood that too, no matter how she currently felt about him. Maybe that was why she had been drawn to him, when she had been repelled before. Maybe it was because she recognized the base instinct in him and the primal hunter he didn't fight to hide. Sam was sweet and dangerous when he had to be; Dean was menacing all the time and charming when he remembered to be.

It made the brothers quite the pair.

Ali stopped as the sun was setting, not wanting to risk driving on ice along the isolated highways she tended to favor. The cops were always on the interstates, scoping for the drivers who set their cars on cruise control and zoned out. The only problem with her preferred method of traveling was the fact that the highways were rarely lit, or maintained, nearly so well. She found a motel in Sundance, South Dakota, halfway between Rapid City and Gilette, and considered the day's drive successful. She had about another full day's drive to do and then she'd be in Los Angeles, where it wasn't as ridiculously cold as it was this far north. She'd scout around online for some of the spooky and find a job—it usually wasn't hard in huge, sprawling cities. She'd snag some sleep and leave as the sun was coming up again so she could get to an actually habitable place as fast as possible.

She checked into the Roadway and grabbed some burgers before she returned, bag thrown in the corner by the scratched tabletop. She ate and screwed around on the Net before she started sifting for stories she could work with. Anything. Even the hint of something. She'd take it. She wanted sun and civilization and to forget about the damn Winchester brothers as quickly as she could. They were certainly pushed to the back of her mind when she found an article about three mysterious deaths that had occurred. Apparently, middle-aged office workers were dropping dead from brain aneurysms, even though nothing had been noted in their medical records about any of them having such a condition. It definitely seemed like her kind of thing, at least, and she'd take anything she could get.

Ali showered off and threw on sweats for bed, crawling beneath the sheets gratefully. Over nine hours of straight driving could be exhausting and she fell asleep quickly, fingers brushing against the handle of the knife she always kept under her pillow—just in case.

It was no match for what did come for her though.

Ali was rudely awakened in the worst way possible. She was grabbed by the ankle and thrown to the ground before she could even think of grabbing her knife, years of training be damned. Her hip made contact with the ground, meeting it brutally, enough so that she cried out, twisting to meet her attacker. She was captured again and hurled into a wall, earning another cry of pain. She twisted, fighting to see, fighting to engage whoever had attacked her. In the light, dim as it was coming through the thin curtains, she was able to see a woman, hair as dark as her eyes, and mouth full of needles.

"You should have hidden yourself better," the vampire hissed, slamming Ali's head against the wall until her eyes swam, stars popping into existence in her vision. "It wasn't hard tracking you down at all."

"How did you—get out?" Ali gasped, fighting to even breathe through the straw her throat had become because of the abnormally strong hand grasped about her windpipe.

"I didn't." The woman—or what used to have been a woman—glared at her malevolently. She would have been beautiful if her mouth wasn't straight out of a horror movie. "I wasn't there. I was out scoping new targets and then—" She hissed, straining closer, eyes lit by an inner fire. "You and those Winchesters were there, your smell all over the fucking place."

"So why…come after…me?"

"Yeah, because I'm going to go after the Winchester brothers alone." She sneered. "Do you think I'm an idiot? You were easier. Faster. Pretty little girl all alone? Easy pickings."

"Good to…know. I'll…work on it…next time."

"Next time? You're not going to have a next time. You're dying right here for taking out my family."

Ali hoped she was going to be played with first. Most predators put in this position liked to play first, extend the pain, opt for a little torture before they went in for the kill—the equivalent of a cat batting around a mouse before it devoured it. She hoped that happened here. She had the knife under her pillow, and she had her machete in her bag, a mere three feet away. If she could just be thrown to the ground again, she could get one or the other. She could have a fighting chance then. She prayed that the creature in front of her was a vindictive bitch, and strained to catch any movement she would make—

when the door came crashing in.

The vampire turned, screaming obscenities. She let Ali go, turning to defend herself against the intruders. Ali fell to the ground, coughing and gasping for air, and immediately scrambled to her knife. She stood, rubbing her throat, knife extended defensively. Over the shoulder of the vampire crouched between them, she saw Sam and Dean, long knives in their own hands.

"So nice of you to join us, boys," she coughed, wincing, "but I've got this handled."

"Yeah, clearly," Dean retorted sarcastically.

"I'm going to kill you all! All of you! You killed my family! My brothers, my sisters! My lov—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. We get it." Dean jerked his head. "Sam."

Sam stepped forward, crouching low. The vampire looked at Ali, to her left, and the Winchesters to her right, snarling, mouth full of nightmares. Ali looked at Sam, eyebrows raised. He nodded. Ali went in low, ducking, as the female turned toward her. Sam rushed at the same time and the creature turned, trying to anticipate them both. Ali hacked viciously at her hamstring, seeking to sever it and at least incapacitate the thing. Sam swung high, aiming for neck.

There was a spray of blood and a thunk and the danger had been avoided.

Ali stood slowly, surveying the damage. The vampire's head was on the floor, near the legs of the Formica table, her body collapsed, blood already collecting in a pool. A blood spray filled the room, including the three of the hunters standing there. Ali looked at it all for a moment before she licked her lips slowly.

"Wonderful. Now I'll have a police investigation for the murder in my room."

"What? Would you have liked us to taken it outside? Saved a little clean-up time and increased the chance of being seen decapitating someone?"

Ali looked at Dean coolly, not saying a word, until he shrugged and turned, avoiding her gaze.

"Come on, Sam, help me get some stuff to clean this place up."

Sam nodded slowly and walked toward Ali, eyes so full of concern and worry that it hurt. She didn't deserve being looked at like that. She didn't want to be. She was supposed to be forgetting them, both of them.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she lied. Her throat hurt like a bitch, she was sure to have bruises all over the next day, and her heart had sank like a lead-coated stone. "I'll get started in here."

He nodded and followed his brother outside, sending one last anxious look at her over his shoulder. Ali stood for a few moments, fists clenched. Of course they would show up. Of course they would save the day.

The three of them cleaned in silence, wiping down walls and surfaces. They bagged up the body, head and all, and threw it into the trunk of the brothers' car. They were trying to lie low here and that meant hiding it, hiding it all. Ali took the sheets to the laundry to be washed with a cup full of bleach. As far as the motel was going to know, nothing had happened at all.

Once it was done, she watched them, silent, knowing what was coming but hoping she was wrong all the same. She sat on the stripped down bed, Dean in one of the chairs at the table and Sam standing between. The pacifier. Always the pacifier.

"So…you know what this means," Sam began, rubbing a hand nervously over the back of his head. He was so cute. He was so wrong for her.

"No, please tell me," she intoned. She watched Dean for a moment but he shifted, staring at his hands clasped between his knees. Of course. Of course he didn't want to look at her. No one liked being reminded of what a coward they had been.

"Well…we'd like it if you joined us. We obviously don't know if we cleaned that entire nest out, since she showed up, and it's safer to be a group of three than alone." Sam threw his brother a nervous look before he swallowed and continued on. The look he gave Ali was soft, pleading. The puppy. "We can't let you go on alone again, Ali. We have no idea who else could be there and we don't want to risk it."

"I'll just—"

"No." Dean cut her off, finally focusing on her, nothing but grave. "We're going to work together because we're not going to let you get choked to death by some vamp with a grudge. That's final."

"I don't need—"

"I don't care what you do or don't need. This is what's happening so there's no use in fighting it. If you take off, we'll just follow you."

Dean scrutinized her for a moment and Ali had no idea what the brow-wrinkled look was for and could not begin to think of what it could mean. Dean's face was closed, serious, but she could sense a brew of emotions lurking beneath that calm exterior, the storm that had no quite swam into view.

"C'mon, Sam. Let's see if we can grab a room next door."

Dean exited into the frigid night, Sam following as soon as he smiled at her in attempt to bolster her spirits. It left Ali alone in the room, a room that suddenly seemed much more ominous. She saw a drop of blood they had missed on the carpet and muttered a curse.

She felt like she was back at square one. Once again, she was beholden to the Winchesters and was being protected by them against her will. How had this happened again? And how had they found her? She had never told either of them where she was headed. She sighed, flopping back onto bed, more tired than she could describe. The situation may have eerily felt like some strange case of deja vu but it wasn't an entire carbon copy because she had slept with Sam and almost slept with Dean now.

And Sam was never, ever going to find out as far as she was concerned.


End file.
